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Erick and Sally 


BY THE SWISS WRITER 

'J'Uu. JOHANNA "^SPtTrI 

A M 

Author of Heidiy Chely 
and many other stories 


TRANSLATED BY 

Helene H. Boll 



Printed in the U. S. A. 


Peacon ^reiGiiec 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



Copyright, 1921 
By The Beacon Press 


All rights reserved 



DEC 30 1921 


an!.A653360 


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Affectionately dedicated 
to 

MRS. MARTHA C. BUHLER 


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PREFACE 


To our Boys and Girls: 

Years ago, in a little country called Switzer- 
land, there lived a little girl who was the 
daughter of a doctor. This doctor sometimes 
had to climb up high mountains and some- 
times he had to descend slowly to the deep 
valleys, always on horseback, to visit the sick 
people who had sent for him. Of course there 
were no telephones, electric lights, steam trains 
or automobiles, and so often this doctor was 
away from home for two or three days at- 
tending the people who needed his help. His 
trips took him into little villages where there 
were only a few hundred poor people who 
made a scant living from farming and sheep 
raising, but he knew them so well that he be- 
came very fond of them, and he shared their 
sorrows and joys. When he returned home 
he would tell his little daughter, who was 
Johanna Spyri, about what he had seen and 
heard. She became very much interested in 
the people whom her father told about, and 
Cvii] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

when she grew up she visited many of the 
places that he had told her about when she 
was a child. 

It was not until she was quite a grown 
woman that she wrote any books, but the 
children of Switzerland and Germany loved 
her stories so much, that we have decided to 
translate the story of Erick and Sally for the 
children of America. The author knew chil- 
dren and loved them, and wrote to them and 
not for them. Thus, every one who reads 
this story will follow the sorrows and pleasures 
of Erick just as if he were a personal living 
friend. 

The translator understands American boys 
and girls, for she has been a teacher in our 
schools for many years. She also has an inti- 
mate knowledge of the country described in 
this story for she has often visited the places 
mentioned. Through her knowledge and love 
of the country about which Madame Spyri 
wrote, and speaking her language, the trans- 
lator, Helene H. Boll, appreciates her thoughts, 
and has faithfully reproduced them in this 
absorbing little story. 

The Publishers. 


Cyiii ] 


CONTENTS 


Chapter I 

In the Parsonage of Upper 
Wood 

Page 

1 

Chapter II 

A Call in the Village . . . 

15 

Chapter III 

’Lizebeth on the Warpath 

40 

Chapter IV 

The Same Night in Two 
Houses 

53 

Chapter V 

Disturbance in School and 
Home 

61 

Chapter VI 

A Lost Hymn 

72 

Chapter VII 

Erick Enlists in the Fight- 
ing Army 

86 

Chapter VIII 

What Happens on Organ- 
Sunday 

100 

Chapter IX 

A Secret that is Kept . . 

113 

Chapter X 

Surprising Things Happen 

130 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 

Portrait of Madame Spyri 

Frontispiece 


Now the lady held out her hand and 
said in a friendly tone, ‘‘Come here, 
dear child” 24 

Churi . . . unexpectedly gave him 
such a severe push that Erick rolled 
down the rest of the mountain side . 137 

He threw both arms around the old 
gentleman’s neck and rejoicingly ex- 
claimed: “Oh, Grandfather, is it really 
you?” 158 


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CHAPTER I 

In the Parsonage of Upper Wood 

HE sun was shining so brightly through 
the foremost windows of the old school- 
house in Upper Wood, that the children 
of the first and second classes appeared 
as if covered with gold. They looked 
at one another, all with beaming faces, partly 
because the sun made them appear so, and 
partly for joy; for when the sunshine came 
through the last window, then the moment 
approached that the closing word would be 
spoken, and the children could rush out into 
the evening sunshine. The teacher was still 
busy with the illuminated heads of the second 
class, and indeed with some zeal, for several 
sentences had still to be completed, before 
the school could be closed. The teacher was 
standing before a boy who looked well-fed and 
quite comfortable, and who was looking up 
into the teacher’s face with eyes as round as 
two little balls. 

“Well, Ritz, hurry, you surely must have 
thought of something by now. Now then! 

[1 ] 




ERICK AND SALLY 

What can be made useful in a household? Do 
not forget to mention the three indispensable 
qualities of the object.” 

Ritz, the youngest son of the minister, was 
usually busy thinking of that which had just 
happened to him. So just now it had come to 
his mind, how this very morning Auntie had 
arrived. She was an older sister of his mother 
and had no home of her own ; but made a home 
with her relatives. She was a frequent visitor 
at the parsonage for months at a time and 
would help the mother in governing the house- 
hold. Ritz remembered especially, that Auntie 
was particularly inclined to have the children 
go to bed in good time — ^and they had to go — 
and he also remembered that they could not 
get the extra ten minutes from Mother, for 
Auntie was always against begging Mother. 
In fact. Auntie talked so much about going to 
bed, that Ritz felt the feared command of re- 
tiring during the whole day. So his thoughts 
were occupied with these experiences, and he 
said after some thinking: ‘‘One can make use 
of an aunt in a household. She must — ^she 
must — she must — ” 

“Well, what must she? That will be some- 
thing different from a quality,” the teacher in- 
terrupted the laborious speech of the boy. 

[ 2 ] 


IN THE PARSONAGE OF UPPER WOOD 

‘‘She must not always be reminding that it 
is time to go to bed,” it now came out. 

“Ritz,” the teacher said now in a severe 
tone, “is the school the place to joke.^^” 

But Ritz looked at the teacher with such un- 
mistakable fright and astonishment, that the 
latter saw that it was an honest opinion which 
Ritz had made use of in his sentence. He 
therefore changed his mind and said more 
gently: “Your sentence is unfitting and incor- 
rect, for your three qualities are not there. 
Do you understand that, Ritz? You will have 
to make three sentences at home, all alike; 
but do not forget the different qualities. Have 
you understood me?” 

“Yes, teacher,” answered Ritz in deepest 
dejection, for he already saw himself sitting 
alone in the evening thinking and thinking and 
gnawing on his slate pencil, while Sally and 
Edi could pursue their merry entertainments. 

Now the end of school was announced. In 
a short time the door was opened, and the boys 
and girls hastened out toward the open place 
before the schoolhouse, where suddenly all 
were crowded together like a huge ball, from 
the midst of which came a tremendous noise 
and confused shoutings. Something out of the 
common must have happened. 

[ 3 : 


ERICK AND SALLY 

“In the house of old Marianne” — “a tre- 
mendously rich lady” — “a piano, four men 
could not get it in, the door is too narrow” — 
“a small boy” — “before we went to school” 
— It was so confused, nothing could really 
be understood. Then a voice shouted: “All 
come along! Perhaps they are not through 
with it, come, all of you to the Middle Lot!” 
And suddenly the whole ball separated, and 
almost the whole crdwd ran in the same 
direction. 

Only two boys remained on the playground 
and looked at each other, quite perplexed. 
The one was stout little Ritz, who long since 
had forgotten his great trouble and had listened 
intently to the exciting, although incompre- 
hensible story. The other was his brother 
Edi, a slender, tall fellow with a high forehead 
and serious grey eyes beneath. He was hardly 
two years older than his brother; but for his 
not quite nine years, he was tall, and appeared 
much older than the seven-year-old Ritz. 

“ We must run home quickly and ask whether 
we too may go; we must see that, Ritz, so 
hurry up!” With these words Edi pulled his 
brother along, and soon they turned round the 
corner and also disappeared. 

Behind the schoolhouse, near the hawthorn 
[4 ] 


IN THE PARSONAGE OF UPPER WOOD 

hedge, stood the last of the crowd in animated 
conversation. It was Sally, the ten-year-old 
sister of the two boys, with her friend Kaetheli, 
who with great excitement seemed to describe 
an occurrence. 

“But Kaetheli, I do not know the begin- 
ning,” said Sally. “Just you begin at the 
beginning, from where you saw everything 
with your own eyes, will you?” 

“Very well, I will, but this time you must 
pay close attention,” said Kaetheli. “You 
know that the old blind straw-plaiter lived with 
the little girl Meili at old Marianne’s? Well, 
Meili went to school at Lower Wood. Two 
weeks ago her father died and Meili had to go 
to Lower Wood to her uncle. Then Marianne 
cleaned the bedroom and the sitting-room ter- 
ribly clean, opened all the windows, and after- 
wards closed them all again and put on the 
shutters. She herself lives in the little room 
above. But this morning everything was open, 
and yet Marianne had said nothing about it to 
anyone and all people in Middle Lot were sur- 
prised at that. At half -past eleven, just when 
we were coming out of school, we saw a wagon 
coming up the hill from Lower Wood, and the 
horse could hardly pull the load, for there was 
a large piano on the wagon, a bed, and lots of 
[ 5 : 


ERICK AND SALLY 

other things, a table and a little box, and I 
think that was all. Now the wagon stopped 
at old Marianne’s cottage, and all at once there 
came out of the cottage old Marianne and a 
woman, who was quite white in the face, and 
behind them came a little boy, and no one had 
seen them come up. Then four men of Middle 
Lot wanted to carry the piano into the cottage 
but it would not go through the door because 
the door was too narrow and the piano too wide. 
And all who stood around to look said she 
must be a very rich woman, because she had 
such a large piano. But no one knew from 
where she came, and when anyone asked old 
Marianne she snarled and said: ‘I haven’t 
anytime.’ 

“All the people around are surprised that a 
rich lady should come to old Marianne in the 
wooden cottage; my father has said long since 
that the cottage would tumble over one of these 
days. And Sally! I wish you could see the 
woman, you too would be surprised that she 
should make her home there. Just think, she 
wears a black silk skirt on week-days!” 

“And what about the boy, how does he 
look.f^” asked Sally, who had followed her 
friend’s story with close attention. 

“I had almost forgotten him,” continued 
[ 6 ] 


IN THE PARSONAGE OF UPPER WOOD 

Kaetheli. “Just think, he wears velvet pants, 
quite short black velvet pants and a velvet 
jacket and a cap to match. Just imagine a 
boy with velvet pants!” 

“I should think that would be quite pretty,” 
observed Sally, “but what does he look like 
otherwise 

“I have forgotten that, I had to watch the 
moving of the piano. He is nothing particular 
to look at.” 

“Kaetheli, do you know what.^” Sally said, 
“you go home with me. I want to ask whether 
I may go home with you for a little while. I 
should like to see that too, and then after- 
wards we will both go to old Marianne’s to call, 
will you?'' 

Kaetheli was ready at once to carry out the 
plan, and the children ran together toward the 
parsonage. 

It was only a little while before, that Edi 
and Ritz had arrived home panting for breath. 
In the garden on the bench under the large 
apple-tree. Mother and Auntie were sitting 
mending and conversing over the bringing-up 
of the children; for Auntie knew many a good 
advice, quite new and not worn out. Now 
they heard hasty running, and Edi and Ritz 
came rushing along. 


[' 3 '] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

“May we — in the Middle Lot — to the Mid- 
dle Lot — ^people have arrived — a wagon and a 
piano — a terribly rich woman and a — ” 

Both shouted in confusion, breathlessly and 
incomprehensibly. 

“Now,’^ the aunt cried into the noise, “if 
you behave like two canary birds who suddenly 
have become crazy, no human being can under- 
stand a word. One is to be silent and the 
other may talk, or still better both be silent.” 

But Ritz and Edi could do neither. If Edi 
began to report, then Ritz had to follow. It 
always had been so, and to be silent at this 
moment of excitement, that could not be ex- 
pected; therefore both began afresh and would 
no doubt have continued thus for some time if 
Sally and Kaetheli had not arrived on the 
scene. They made everything clear in a short 
time. 

But the mother did not like to have her chil- 
dren run to the Middle Lot for the sake of star- 
ing at strange people who had arrived there, 
and to increase the gaping crowd who, no 
doubt, were standing in front of Marianne’s 
cottage. She did not give the longed-for per- 
mission, but she invited Kaetheli to stay at the 
parsonage and take afternoon coffee with the 
children and afterwards play in the garden. 

[ 8 ] 


IN THE PARSONAGE OF UPPER WOOD 

That was at least something; Sally and Ritz 
were satisfied, and they ran at once with Kaeth- 
eli into the house. But Edi showed a dissatis- 
fied face, for wherever something strange could 
be seen or found, he had to be there. 

He stood there without saying a word. He 
was thinking whether he dared to work on his 
mother to get the desired permission. He 
feared, however, the auxiliary troops which 
his aunt would lead into battle to help his 
mother. But before he had weighed all sides 
his aunt said: “Well, Edi, have you not yet 
swallowed the defeat.^ Isn’t there some old 
Roman, or Egyptian, who also could not 
always do what he wanted.^ Just you think 
that over and you will see that it will help 
you.” 

That helped, indeed, for Edi was a great 
searcher in history, and when he happened in 
that field, then all other interests were pushed 
into the background. He at once remembered 
that he had not finished reading about his old 
Egyptian, and with a smoothed brow he ran 
into the house. 

The sun had set and it was growing dark 
among the bushes in the garden, where the 
children, with red cheeks, were seeking each 
other and hiding again. All of a sudden there 
[9 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

came a loud, penetrating call: “To bed, to 
bed!” Ritz had just found a fine hiding- 
place in the henhouse, where he had comfort- 
ably settled, secure from being discovered, 
when this terrible call reached him. It struck 
him like a thunderbolt. Yes, it took his 
breath away so that he turned white and hadn’t 
the strength to rise; for, with the call came the 
remembrance of the three sentences which he 
had to write: three whole sentences and nine 
different qualities, and he had forgotten every- 
thing, and now all the time had gone and he had 
to go to bed. 

“Where are you, Ritz.^” It sounded into 
his hiding-place. “ Come, crawl out. I know 
you are in there and will be covered with 
feathers from head to foot.” 

The aunt stood before the henhouse, and 
Sally and Kaetheli beside her full of expecta- 
tion, for they had sought Ritz for a long time 
in vain. But Auntie had experience in such 
things. Ritz actually came crawling out of 
the henhouse and stood now in a lamentable 
condition before his aunt. 

“How you do look! You ought to have 
been in bed an hour ago, you haven’t a drop of 
blood in your cheeks,” the aunt exclaimed. 
“What is the matter with you, Ritz?” 

[ 10 ] 


IN THE PARSONAGE OF UPPER WOOD 

‘‘ Where is Mamma ? ’’asked Ritz in his fright. 

“She is upstairs; come, she will put you to 
bed at once when I have got you finally 
together. Come, Sally, and you, Kaetheli, go 
home now.” 

With these words she took Ritz by the hand, 
and drew him up the stone steps into the house, 
and wanted to bring him up the stairs to the 
bedroom. Then everything was over and no 
rescue from going to bed at once. Now Ritz 
stopped his aunt and groaned: “I must — I 
must — I have to write three sentences for 
punishment.” 

“There we have it.” But Ritz looked so 
miserable that Auntie felt great pity for him. 
“Come in here,” she said, and shoved him 
into the living-room, “and take out your 
things.” 

Now she sat down beside him and the whole 
affair proceeded finely. Not that Auntie 
formed the sentences, no indeed, she was not 
going to cheat the teacher; but she knew well 
what was needed to form a sentence and she 
pushed and spurred Ritz and brought so many 
things before him, and reminded him how they 
looked, that he had his three sentences and his 
nine qualities together in no time. Now there 
came a feeling to Ritz that he had not acted 
[ 11 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

right, when he said that an aunt must not 
always be reminding people, and when now 
Auntie asked : “ Ritz, why had you to write the 
sentences?’’ then the feeling grew stronger in 
him, for he felt that he could not tell the cause 
of his punishment without making his aunt 
angry. He stuttered, “I have — I have — ^the 
teacher has said, that I made an unfitting 
sentence.” 

“Yes, I can imagine that,” said Auntie. 
“Now quickly to bed.” 

Edi and Ritz slept in the same room and 
that was the place where the two boys, every 
evening after the mother had said evening 
prayer with them, and they were alone, ex- 
changed their deepest thoughts and experiences 
with one another and talked them over. Ritz 
had the greatest respect for Edi, for although 
the latter was only a little older, yet he was 
already in the fourth class, and he himself was 
only in the second, and in history Edi knew 
more than the scholars in the fifth and some in 
the sixth class. When now the two were well 
tucked in their beds, Ritz said: “Edi, was it a 
sin that I said Auntie must not always remind? ” 
Edi thought a bit, such a case had never come 
to him. After a while he said: “You see, 
Ritz, it goes thus: if you have done something 
[ 12 ] 


IN THE PARSONAGE OF UPPER WOOD 

that is a sin, then you must go at once to 
Daddy and confess, there is no help for it; but 
if you do that, then everything comes again in 
order and you feel happy again, and afterwards 
you look out not to do the sinful thing again. 
I can tell you that, Ritz. But if you do not 
confess, then you are always full of fear when 
a door is slammed or a letter-carrier unexpect- 
edly brings a letter, then you think at once: 
‘There now, everything will come out.’ And 
so you are never sure nor safe and you feel a 
pressure in the chest. But there is another 
thing that presses so hard that you can think 
of nothing else, for example, if you have given 
away a rabbit, you regret it afterwards. But 
there is a remedy and I have tried it many a 
time, and it helps. You must think of some- 
thing dreadful, like a large fire, when every- 
thing is burnt up, the fortress and the soldiers 
in it and all historical books, and — all at once 
you think everything backwards and you have 
everything; then you are so glad that you think : 
what difference does a rabbit make? You 
still have everything else. Now Ritz, try 
that and see if it helps you, then you can find 
out whether everything passes away or whether 
you have to tell Daddy tomorrow.” 

“Yes, I will try it,” said Ritz somewhat in- 
[13 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

distinctly, and soon after he took such deep 
breaths that Edi knew what was going on. 
He heaved a sigh and said: “Oh, Ritz, you are 
asleep and I wanted to tell you so much about 
the old Egyptian.” 

A little while afterwards the whole peaceful 
parsonage of Upper Wood lay in deep sleep; 
only old ’Lizebeth went about the passage call- 
ing: “Bs, bs, bs.” She wanted to get the old 
grey cat into the kitchen to catch the mice dur- 
ing the night. ’Lizebeth had been in the par- 
sonage of Upper Wood as long as one could 
remember, for there had always been a son, and 
when the time had come, then he had become 
parson in Upper Wood. First ’Lizebeth had 
served the grandfather, then the father and 
now the son, and she had long since elected 
Edi as the future minister, and intended to look 
after his house when he should be the master 
here. 


[ 14 ] 


CHAPTER II 
A Call in the Village 

HE friendly village Upper Wood lay on 
the top of the hill close by the fir wood ; 
it had a beautiful white church with a 
high, slender tower. At a distance of 
three-quarters of an hour’s walk, down 
in the valley, lay Lower Wood, a small com- 
munity which, however, did not wish to be 
considered smaller. They had a new school- 
house and a church of their own, but the 
church had no tower, only a little red dome. 
Therefore the people of Upper Wood were a 
little proud, because their church was much 
prettier and also because they learned much 
more in the old schoolhouse in Upper Wood 
than in the new one of Lower Wood; but 
that was the children’s fault, not the teacher’s. 
In the middle, between the two villages lay a 
hamlet consisting of a few farms and some 
small houses of little pretense. It was called 
the Middle Lot, and its people the Middle 
Letters. They had the choice to what church 
and school they wished to belong, whether to 
Lower Wood or Upper Wood, and according to 
[15 ] 



ERICK AND SALLY 

their choice they were judged by the people of 
Upper Wood; for whoever wanted to learn 
much and be decent, he must, according to the 
Upper Wooders, strive to belong to them. 
This was a fixed and general idea of the people 
on the top of the hill. In the Middle Lot there 
lived only two families who were generally re- 
spected; the Justice of Peace, who was obliged 
to live there because otherwise he would have 
to be called there, and that would have been 
inconvenient. This peace-making man was 
Kaetheli’s father. And the other was old 
Marianne, who lived in her own house and 
pulled horse-hair for a living, and never did 
harm to anyone. 

When on the next morning the three chil- 
dren of the parsonage passed Marianne’s house 
on their way to school, Sally said: “It is fun 
to go to school to-day for the strange boy of 
yesterday will come too; if we only knew his 
name. Kaetheli described him to me ; he wears 
velvet pants. Of course he will come to Upper 
Wood to school.” 

“Of course,” said Edi with a dignified air; 
“who would think of going to Lower Wood to 
School.^^” 

“Of course, who would go there to school?” 
observed Ritz. 


[ 16 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

Then the three in perfect harmony entered 
the schoolhouse. But no strange face was to 
be seen in the whole schoolroom; everything 
went on in the usual way to the end of the morn- 
ing. Then everyone hurried away in differ- 
ent directions. Sally was standing there, some- 
what undecided; she would like to have heard 
something new of the strange boy and his 
mother, for she loved to hear news, and now not 
even Kaetheli, with whom she talked things 
over, had been in school. But now she saw 
Edi soaring along like an arrow into the midst 
of a crowd of boys, and they all acted so strange- 
ly and they shouted so strangely that Sally 
thought that something particular must be 
in preparation there, and no doubt concerned 
the new-comers. Then she could hear some- 
thing from Edi. She went slowly on and kept 
on turning round, but Edi did not come, and 
only after Sally had long since greeted the 
mother and was about to call her father out of 
his study for dinner, did the two brothers come 
running along, their faces red as fire, and breath- 
less, for they had lingered to the last moment. 
The father was just leaving his study when 
both rushed toward him and now it began: 
“We have — the Middle Letters — with the 
Lower Wooders — ” 


[ 17 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

‘‘Hush, hush,” said the father. “First get 
your breath, then relate, one after the other; 
but before anything, first the soup.” With 
these words the father took Ritz’s hand, and 
Sally and Edi followed them into the dining- 
room. Sally pulled Edi a little back and whis- 
pered : 

“Tell me quickly, what did they tell about 
the strange boy.^” 

“About him.^” returned Edi in a somewhat 
scornful tone. “ I had forgotten all about him ! 
We have something else to do than to talk 
about a strange boy, of whom one does not 
even know whether he will come to Upper 
Wood to school.” 

This answer was somewhat unexpected to 
Sally and had a saddening effect; but she 
always could find a way out of an unpleasant 
situation. So she sat as still as a mouse dur- 
ing the whole time the soup was eaten, and 
her thoughts were hard at work. 

Now the father turned to Edi and said: 
“Now you can relate your adventure, while 
Ritz remains quiet, and afterwards his turn will 
come.” Ritz looked quite obedient for he had 
two large noodles on his plate to work with. 

But Edi, in a moment, put down knife and 
fork and quickly began: “Just think. Papa, 
[ 18 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

we have made three songs, one for each parish. 
First, the Lower Wooders began. The sixth 
class were angry because we laughed at them, 
that they only now have to make sentences, 
and we in the fourth class have begun to write 
them already. They made a song about us 
which runs: 

‘Of Upper Wood the boys 
They in their minds rejoice 
Because they think that they the cleverest are, 
But if ever they must fight 
They are in sorry plight 
And they turn round and run for ever so far,’ 

How do you like that song, Papa.^^” 

“Well, that is such as Lower Wooders would 
make,” said the father. 

“And then,” Edi continued, “we have made 
a song for an answer, that goes thus: 

‘And of Lower Wood the crowd 
They always yell so loud 
That they never, never stay within their den, 
For all dispute and strife 
They are much alive 

For they use their fists when they ought to use 
their pen.’ 

How do you like this one, Papa.^” 

[ 19 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
“Just about the same. And who has sung 
about the Middle Lot?” asked the father. 

“The Lower Wooders and we together; they 
too had to have a song, but the shortest, as it 
ought to be. It runs so: 

‘And they of Middle Lot 
They all together plot 
That they are striving zealously for peace. 
But with quarrelling they never cease.’ 

And how do you like that. Papa?” 

“They are, all three of them, kind of fighting 
songs, Edi,” answered the father, “and I 
should prefer that you keep busy with your 
history studies, instead of taking sides in these 
party-fights. One never knows where one 
comes out, and such poetry usually ends with 
lumps on the heads.” 

Edi seemed much disappointed as he at- 
tacked his noodles with a visibly spoiled appe- 
tite. 

“And what has been your experience, Sally? 
Why are you so pensive? ” the father continued. 

“ Kaetheli was not at school,” reported Sally, 
“and I had so much to talk over with her. 
Perhaps she is sick; may I go to see her this 
afternoon? We have no school, you know.” 
[ 20 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

“Aha, Sally wants to see the strange boy,” 
the sharp-witted Edi remarked. 

“You may go, Sally,” the mother said, 
answering a questioning look from the father. 
“ But you will not go into any house where you 
have no business, just to look at strangers. I 
know you are capable of doing such things. 
You can start soon after dinner.” 

Sally was very happy. She quickly fetched 
her straw hat and took leave. But outside she 
did not run straight through the passage-way 
as she usually did in similar cases, but went to 
the kitcheii door and peeped in, and when she 
saw ’Lizebeth at the sink, where the latter was 
scraping her pans, she went in very close to the 
old woman and said somewhat mysteriously: 
“’Lizebeth, does Edi or Ritz perhaps have a 
torn mattress on their bed.^” 

’Lizebeth stopped scraping and turned 
round. She looked at Sally from head to foot, 
put her hands on her hips and said very slowly 
and importantly: “May I ask what you mean 
by that question, Sally Do you think this 
household is so carried on that one lies about 
on ragged mattresses and sleeps, until a little 
one, who is far from old enough to turn a mat- 
tress, thinks of coming to ask ‘does not this 
one or that one have a ragged mattress ’ on his 
[21 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

bed? Yes, Sally, what cobwebs you do have 
in your head.” 

“I do not care about the mattress, it is on 
account of Marianne that I ask,” Sally ex- 
plained. “Do you know, she now has some 
new people in her house and I should so much 
like to see them, and therefore I wanted so 
much to know whether you could not sacrifice 
a mattress so that Marianne could pull the 
horsehair for a mattress, for Mother will not 
let me go into the house without a good 
excuse.” 

“Oh, so! that is different,” said ’Lizebeth 
quite mildly, for she had also been wondering 
what kind of people her old friend had taken 
into her home, and now, perhaps, she could 
learn something about them through Sally. 

“I can help you, Sally,” she said. “You go 
to Marianne and tell her, that I send my greet- 
ings, and I have long since intended to come 
and see her, but the likes of us cannot get away 
when we want to; we never know what may 
happen if we are out of the house for five min- 
utes; but tell her that I will surely come some 
fine Sunday. Now then go, and give my 
message.” 

Sally ran with a joyous heart, first through 
the garden, then away over the meadow and 
[ 22 : 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

down the hill as far as the fir wood, where the 
dry road lay for a long stretch in the shade. 
Here Sally slackened her pace a little. It was 
so beautiful to walk along in shade of the trees, 
where above in their tops the wind rustled so 
delightfully and all the birds sang in confusion. 
She also had to consider how she would arrange 
her calls, whether she would go first to Kaetheli 
or to Marianne; but this time old Marianne 
had a stronger attraction than Kaetheli and 
Sally felt that she must go there first and give 
her message. Now her thoughts fell on the 
strange people and she had to imagine how they 
looked and what she was going to say, and 
what they would say when she knocked and 
asked for Marianne. Thus she thought every- 
thing well out, for Sally had a great power of 
imagining things. 

In this way she came to the first houses of 
Middle Lot. She turned away from the road 
and went toward Marianne’s house, which stood 
a little way from the road and lay almost hid- 
den behind a hedge. As Sally had been accus- 
tomed to do, she now ran right into the house, 
although the house door was also the kitchen 
door. After entering the front door she stood 
in the small kitchen and was at once before an- 
other door which led into the living-room. 

[23 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

This door stood wide open and Sally found her- 
self suddenly in the presence of a lady dressed 
in black, who sat in that room sewing and who 
lifted her head at Sally’s noisy entrance, and 
with large sad eyes she looked at the child in 
silence. 

Sally grew as red as fire and in her embar- 
rassment remained standing near the door like 
one rooted to the floor. 

Now the lady held out her hand and said in a 
friendly tone, “Come here, dear child, what 
brings you to me 

Sally was quite confused. She did not 
remember why she had come, for she had really 
not come to see Marianne. She had invented 
that — to get into the house where she had 
arrived now so unexpectedly. She approached 
the lady and wanted to say something, but 
nothing came out. Sally grew crimson and 
stood there more helpless than ever before in 
her life. 

The lady took the child’s hand and stroked 
her glowing cheeks. 

“Come, sit down beside me, dear child,” she 
then said, with a voice so sweet that it went 
deep into Sally’s heart. ‘ ‘ Come, we shall come 
gradually to know each other a little.” 

Now there came from out of a corner a 
[24 ] 





Now the Lady held out her hand and said in a friendly tone, 

Come here, dear child. . . . 









A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

quick noise of moving; Sally did not know 
what it was, for until now she had not dared to 
look around the room, but now she looked up. 

A boy, a little taller than she, was carrying 
a small easy chair and placed it before Sally. 
He looked at her with such a merry face as the 
restrained laughter came so visibly out of his 
eyes, that the sight brought a complete rever- 
sion in Sally’s feelings, and she, all at once, 
laughed right out; upon which, the boy too, 
relieved his feelings by a bright peal of laugh- 
ter, for the rushing in and then the confusion 
of the unexpected guest had long since tempted 
him to laugh; but he was too well trained to 
dare to break out. 

“Well, my child,” said the mother with that 
winning voice, “and what has brought you 
to me?” 

“I have — I ought to — I wanted,” Sally be- 
gan hesitatingly, “I wanted to give a message 
to Marianne — ” Sally could not stop at half 
the truth. The sad, friendly eyes of the lady 
were penetratingly resting on hers, so every- 
thing had to come out as it was. 

“That is lovely and friendly of you, that 
you want to see us, dear little girl. How did 
you hear of us?” asked the lady, and took 
off Sally’s straw hat, while she put the question 
[25 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

to the child. She placed the hat on the table 
and smoothed her hair with a mother’s touch. 

Now Sally related all in full confidence how it 
had happened, and that she and her two brothers 
had wanted to come yesterday to find out who 
was coming to live with Marianne, and to find 
out how the piano and all the other things 
could find room in the little house. Sally now, 
for the first time, looked around the room and 
she had to wonder a little, for she saw only the 
piano and four bare walls, and then there were 
the two easy chairs on which she and the lady 
were sitting, and the small table. She knew 
that besides this room there was a very small 
bedroom, where two beds could hardly find 
room. Sally could not set herself to rights; all 
was so different from what she had imagined. 
She had expected to see strange and foreign 
things standing about everywhere and now she 
saw nothing besides an old piano. And yet 
the lady who sat before her in a black silken 
dress looked more aristocratic than Sally 
could ever have imagined; and the boy in his 
velvet suit looked quite like the old knights 
in Edi’s beautiful picture book, and he had 
brought her a seat without anyone telling him, 
and was more refined and courteous than she 
had ever before seen a boy. 

[ 26 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

When Sally turned her surprised eyes again 
to the lady, she saw such a painful expression 
in her face that it came involuntarily into her 
mind how the mother had said, that of course 
“she would not go there for the sake of staring 
at the people,” and she felt that she was doing 
something very much like it. Sally rose. 
All at once she remembered to whom she really 
wanted to go, so she said hastily: “I must go 
to Kaetheli; she may be sick.” With these 
words she quickly offered her hand to the 
lady. 

The lady, too, had risen; she took the prof- 
fered hand, held it between both of hers, and 
looked once more so lovingly into the child’s 
eyes, that her little heart was moved. Then 
she kissed her forehead and said: “You dear 
child, you were a friendly picture in our quiet 
room.” 

Then she let go of her hand, and Sally went 
through the open door into the small kitchen. 
The boy, meanwhile, had opened the house 
door and now he stood outside quite courte- 
ously, like a doorkeeper, to bid Sally good-bye. 

“Are you not coming to school tomorrow.^” 

“Yes, indeed,” was the answer. 

That pleased Sally very much and she at 
once decided that he must become Edi’s friend, 
[ 27 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

for she had taken a great liking to the boy and 
when he was Edi’s friend then he would be 
hers too, and he must come every Sunday after- 
noon and spend it with them and they would 
teach him all kinds of games; and many under- 
takings passed through her brain, for with this 
friend everything could be carried out; he was 
so entirely different from other boys and girls 
in the school. “Then you are coming to- 
morrow?” she asked with happy expectation. 

“Where shall I come?” he questioned in 
return. 

“To school, of course.” 

“Yes, indeed. I’ll come to school.” 

“Well, then, good-bye,” said Sally, giving 
her hand, “but I do not know your name.” 

“ Erick — ^and yours ? ” 

“Sally.” 

Now they shook hands, and Erick remained 
standing in the doorway until Sally had turned 
round the hedge, then he shut the door and 
Sally ran toward the house of the Justice of 
Peace. Before she reached it, old Marianne 
met her, panting under the large bundle of 
horsehair which she was carrying on her head. 
Sally was delighted to see her, for she had just 
remembered that she had not given ’Lizebeth’s 
message. She rushed so quickly toward the 
[ 28 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

old woman and with such force, that the latter 
went back some steps and almost lost her bal- 
ance, and Sally cried out: “Marianne, you 
have such nice people in your rooms. Do you 
talk much with them ? Do you cook for them ? 
Do you buy the things they need.^ Have they 
no maid? Do you make their beds?” 

“Gently, gently,” said Marianne, who had 
recovered her balance, “else I lose my breath. 
But tell me, how did you get into the people’s 
room? I hope you know how I am to be 
found.” 

Sally told her that she, for the shorter way, 
had not gone round the house, where, in the 
woodshed, a narrow stair went up to Mari- 
anne’s small room; but that she had wanted 
to run in the front way, through the kitchen, 
and out the back door; but that she had stood 
suddenly before the open door of the room and 
under the eyes of the lady. 

“You must never do that again,” Marianne 
interrupted Sally, raising her finger warningly. 
“Do you hear that, Sally? Never do that 
again. They are not people into whose home 
you can rush, as if they were living on the 
highway.” 

“ But the lady was quite friendly, Marianne,” 
soothed Sally, “she was not at all offended.” 

[29 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

“That makes no difference, she is always so, 
she could not be otherwise, and just on that 
account, and on account of many other things, 
do you hear, Sally? Promise that you never 
again go that way when you want to come to 
me. Will you promise?” 

. “Yes, indeed I will. I do not intend to do 
it again. Good night, Marianne ! Now I have 
forgotten the main thing: ’Lizebeth sends her 
greetings and she will come to see you on a 
fine Sunday.” 

The last words came from some distance, for 
Sally had already started on a run while she 
gave the message, and when Marianne wanted 
to send her greetings, Sally was already far 
away. After a few more jumps Sally arrived 
at the house of the Justice of Peace, in front of 
which stood a large apple tree which shaded the 
stone well. Here stood Kaetheli who did not 
look sick at all, but splashed with two fat, 
red arms about the water in which she seemed 
to clean some object eagerly. 

“Then you are not sick. Why didn’t you 
come to school then?” Sally called out when 
she saw her. 

“Oh, it is you? Good evening! I could 
not make out who was jumping about, and I 
hadn’t the time to look,” Kaetheli said with 
[ 30 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

some importance. “That is also the reason 
why I did not go to school. I hadn’t the time, 
for Mother has gone away today to see sick 
Grandmother, and then we got young chickens, 
twelve quite small ones, and that is why I have 
to wash a stocking, for I have run after the 
chicks everywhere and near the barn I stepped 
in the dirt quite deep. But come, I will show 
you the chickens. Never mind if I have only 
one stocking on.” 

But Sally had only very little time left and 
besides, her head was full of quite different 
things and she wanted to hear Kaetheli tell of 
something else than the new chickens, so she 
said quite decisively : “ No, Kaetheli, I haven’t 
time enough to see the chickens. I only 
wanted to know whether you were ill and I 
want to tell you something. I have seen the 
strange lady and the boy whom you know. 
He does look nice. Do you know his name.^” 

“He.^” said Kaetheli, shrugging her shoul- 
ders. “ Of course I know. His name is Erick 
and just think, he goes to school at Lower 
Wood; I have seen him myself today, with his 
school sack, going there.” 

That was a blow for Sally. He went to 
school at Lower Wood. What was now to 
come of her beautiful plans ? Of all the planned 
[31 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

Sundays which were to be so full of joy and de- 
light, and the whole friendship with the pre- 
possessing Erick? For how could Edi ever be 
brought to making friends with a fellow who 
went to Lower Wood to school, when he just as 
well might have gone to Upper Wood? Sally 
was very downcast, but she did not easily give 
up a pleasant intention. On the way home 
she wanted to think what could be done, there- 
fore she stretched out her hand to the aston- 
ished Kaetheli, and this time the invitation, 
to at least come into the room and eat a piece 
of bread and butter, was not accepted; nor 
would she go with Kaetheli behind the barn 
where they could fetch down ripe cherries from 
the large cherry tree — it was all of no use. 

“Another time, Kaetheli, it is already so late 
I must go home,” and Sally ran away. Kaeth- 
eli stood there much surprised and looked after 
her, and in her bright mind she thought: 
“Sally has something new in her head, else I 
could have brought her to the cherry tree, for 
she is not always so anxious to go home; but I 
will find out what it is.” 

Meanwhile Sally ran for a long stretch, then 
she began to walk slower, for she had to think 
over so many things and she was so lost in her 
plans that she forgot when she arrived at the 
[ 32 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

garden which stretched from her home far into 
the meadows. Ritz stood on the low wall and 
beckoned with wild gestures, for Sally had not 
seen him at first. 

“Do come a little quicker so that you can 
tell something, else we will have to go to bed, 
for Auntie has already looked twice at her 
watch. Were you in the barn at Kaetheli’s.^^ 
How many cows are in it.^ Have you seen the 
young goat.^” 

But Sally had different things in her head. 
She hastily stepped into the house, while Ritz 
followed. The rest of the family were in the 
living-room. Mother and Auntie were mend- 
ing stockings ; Father was reading a large church 
paper. Edi, his head supported on both hands, 
sat lost in his history book. Sally had hardly 
opened the door when she cried out with much 
excitement: “Oh, Mother, you ought to have 
seen how friendly the lady was, and she is so 
beautiful and so gentle and so good, and quite 
an aristocratic lady; and Erick in his velvet 
suit is like a knight, and so fine and polite. 
Edi could not find a nicer friend.” 

They all looked surprised at Sally, and a 
pause followed this outburst. Sally had quite 
forgotten that she was not to go to the strange 
people, and that she had given, as the object 
[33 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

of her walk, the call on Kaetheli. She now 
remembered everything and she grew very red. 

“But, dear child,” said the mother, “did you 
really, in spite of opposition from me, press in- 
to the home of the strange people.^ How could 
you enter the house without an excuse 

“Not without an excuse. Mamma , ” said Sally, 
somewhat embarrassed. “ ’Lizebeth had given 
me a message for old Marianne.” 

“Which the inquisitive Sally fetched in the 
kitchen for the purpose of carrying out her 
plan, that is clear,” remarked Auntie. When 
the whole truth lay open to the light of day, 
Sally felt relieved and she returned with new 
zeal to her communication. She had much to 
describe : the empty room and the silk dress of 
the lady, and her sad glances, and then the 
knightly Erick with his joyous laughter and 
the merry eyes; but she could not describe it 
all so attractively as it seemed to her. 

“So,” said Edi, looking up from his book, 
“now you have another friend. It will go, 
no doubt, with him as with little Leopold!” 
After giving her this fling he bent again over 
his book and read on, taking no notice of any- 
thing. 

Sally did not find the desired sympathy. 
She was so full of her impressions that she felt 
[34 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

Mother and Aunt should be all afire and aflame 
for her new friendship. Instead of that, the 
two kept on mending the stockings ; Father did 
not even look up from his paper and Edi had 
only a satirical remark for sympathy. Sally 
had rather a bad reputation for making friend- 
ships. Almost every week she saw some one 
who appealed to her so much, that she must 
make a friendship at once; but the friendships 
were mostly of short duration, for she had 
imagined something else than she often found 
on looking closer. This made her quite un- 
happy at the time, but the next week she had 
already found some one else who filled her 
thoughts. 

The last unfortunate friendship had brought 
forth Edi’s satire to a greater degree. The 
tailor of Upper Wood had three sons, and since 
the father on his wanderings had spent some 
time in Vienna he gave his sons, in remem- 
brance of the beautiful days which he spent 
there, the names of three Austrian grand 
dukes. It was this strange name that had first 
attracted Sally; to that was added that Leo- 
pold, the oldest of the sons, who had lived 
with his grandfather until now, but had come 
recently to Upper Wood, always wore elegant 
jackets and pants after the latest cut. Leo- 
[35 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

pold had entered Sally’s class and his appear- 
ance had at once inspired her. But he was so 
small and dainty that he received the name 
Leopoldy from the whole school. The rumor 
had preceded Leopold, that he had staid three 
years in the same class in the town where his 
grandfather lived. So Edi looked down on 
Leopoldy from an elevation of a fourth class 
boy and noticed with scorn how Sally found 
pleasure in the little fellow and befriended him. 
But that did not last long for, after a trial of a 
week, Leopoldy was set back two classes, since 
he had been put in the fifth class on account of 
his years, but not his deserts. In these eight 
days Sally had discovered, with sorrow, that 
Leopoldy was unusually silly, and Sally was 
glad that the enormous gap that lies between 
the fifth and third class, made easier the rupture 
of this friendship which could not continue, for 
nothing could be done with Leopoldy. So it 
happened that no one listened with sympathy 
to the enthusiastic description which Sally 
gave of her new friends, for each one remem- 
bered Leopoldy, and that was not inspiring. 

This general coolness angered Sally very 
much. She knew her new friends if they would 
only believe her. All ought to be so interested 
in this mother and her Erick, that they would 
[36 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

want to know everything possible about them, 
and now no one asked a question and they 
hardly listened to her communication. That 
was too much; Sally had to relieve her tension. 
She suddenly broke forth to Edi, who was en- 
tirely lost in his book: “Although you read a 
thousand books one after the other, and act as 
if one did not tell anything, and you think that 
one must have no friendship with any human 
being on this earth but only for the thousand- 
thousand-year-old Egyptians, yet you might 
be glad to have a friend like Erick.” 

Edi must have just read something that 
made him solemn, for he looked quite restrain- 
edly up from his book and said quite seriously: 
“You see, Sally, you do not at all know what 
friendship is, for you believe that one can have 
a new friend every week. But one ought to 
have only one friend for the whole life, and one 
must drag his enemy three times around the 
walls of Troy.” 

“Then he will have to make a nice journey 
if he comes from Upper Wood,” remarked 
Sally quickly. 

The mother meanwhile had left the room, 
and Aunt rose from her work. 

“You will get quite barbaric from pure his- 
torical research,” she said, turning to Edi, 
[ 37 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
“but now it is high time to go to bed, quick! 
But where is Ritz?” 

Ritz had withdrawn behind the stove a full 
hour ago in the hope of there escaping his fate 
for some time. But sleep had overcome him 
in the dark corner. 

“Now we have the trouble,” the aunt cried, 
when the sleeper had been discovered, and only 
with the greatest difficulty she woke him. 

While Auntie was pushing and shaking the 
sleepy Ritz, Edi had tried several times to get 
near her, but she had always escaped him. 
Now a quiet moment came. Ritz was at last 
awake. Edi quickly stepped up to his aunt 
and said: “I did not mean alive, only after his 
death, like Achilles did.” 

“Now he too is talking in his sleep and says 
all kinds of nonsense,” the aunt cried quite 
excitedly, for she had long since forgotten Edi’s 
judgment on the enemy and she did not know 
what he was talking about. “No, no, it can- 
not go on like this, children must go to bed in 
good time, else the whole household gets out of 
joint.” 

Edi wanted to explain once more, only to 
make it clear to her, and not to have to go to 
bed misunderstood, so he had followed her 
about, and now a greater misunderstanding 
[ 38 ] 


A CALL IN THE VILLAGE 

had arisen. There was no more chance for 
explanation. Ritz and Edi were shoved into 
their room, the light put on the table, the door 
was closed, and away went Auntie. 

“I am sure Mother will come to us. I must 
explain <e very thing to her,” Edi said to himself, 
for to be so misunderstood disquieted the think- 
ing Edi exceedingly. And the mother came 
as she did every evening, and she promised to 
make everything clear to Auntie, so he could 
be pacified and find the sleep which Ritz long 
since had found again. 


[ 39 ] 


CHAPTER III 
^Lizebeth on the Warpath 

N the following morning ’Lizebeth stood 
full of expectation at the kitchen door, 
and made all kinds of signs when Sally 
came rushing into the living-room from 
breakfast. The signs were indeed un- 
derstood by the child but she had no time to 
go to the kitchen. She waved her school-bag 
and shouted in rushing by Xizebeth: “When 
I come from school; it is too late now!” Fol- 
lowed by Edi and Ritz she continued her run. 

Something very particular must be in prepa- 
ration, for after school all the scholars were 
standing again in a dense circle, beating their 
hands in the air and shouting as loud as they 
could, to have their views heard. Sally, who 
had waited a few moments for her brothers, 
went on home for she knew how long such 
meetings were apt to last and that her brothers 
would only arrive home when the soup was be- 
ing served. Sally stepped into the house and 
with her school-bag in her hand she went 
straight to the kitchen. 

[ 40 ] 


’LIZEBETH ON THE WARPATH 

‘‘Now I will tell you everything that hap- 
pened yesterday, ’Lizebeth,” she said. 

Xizebeth nodded encouragingly and Sally 
began, and became more and more excited the 
longer she talked. She was most excited when 
she came to telling about the lady and her little 
boy, describing the way she talked, how she 
and the boy were dressed, and her aristocratic 
way. But all at once ’Lizebeth jumped as if a 
wasp had stung her and she called out, “What 
do you say, Sally This woman wears a silk 
dress in the middle of the week.^ Silk.^ And 
she lives at Marianne’s.^ And the boy wears 
velvet pants and a jacket all of velvet.^^ Well, 
well! I have lived ten years with your great- 
grandfather and thirty with your grandfather 
and twelve with your father, and I have seen 
your father grow up from the first day of his 
life and your little brothers. And I have 
known them since they were babies and none 
of them ever had velvet pants on their body, 
and yet they were all ministers, your great- 
grandfather, your grandfather, your father, 
and the little ones will be ministers too, and 
none of them ever had even a piece of velvet 
on them and this woman in the middle of the 
week walks about in silk, yes indeed! And 
then taking rooms at Marianne’s and living 
[41 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

where the basket mender has lived, I tell you, 
Sally, there is something behind that! But it 
has to come out, and if Marianne wants to help 
a hundred times to cover it up, I tell you, Sally, 
I will bring out what is behind it all. Yes, 
indeed, velvet pants I wonder what we shall 
hear next!” 

Sally stood quite astounded before the anger- 
spouting ’Lizebeth, and could not understand 
the cause of this outbreak. But she had 
enough of it, so she turned round and hastened 
into the sitting-room, where, according to her 
expectations, at the very last moment, just 
when ’Lizebeth came into the room with the 
soup tureen, the brothers appeared, in a pecu- 
liar way. At each side of ’Lizebeth one crawled 
into the room, then shot straight across the 
room, like the birds before a storm shoot 
through the air so that one fears they will run 
their heads against something. Fortunately 
the two boys did not run their heads against 
anything, but each landed quite safely on his 
chair, and at once ’Lizebeth placed the soup on 
the table; but so decidedly and with such an 
angry face, as if she wanted to say: “There! 
If you had to put up with what I have to, then 
you would not trouble about your soup.” 

When she was again out of the room the 
[ 42 ] 


XIZEBETH ON THE WARPATH 

father said, looking at his wife: “There will be 
a thunder storm, sure signs are visible.” Then 
turning to his sons he continued : “ But what do 
boys deserve, who come so late to table and from 
pure bad conscience almost knock it over.^” 

Ritz looked crestfallen into his plate, and 
from there in a somewhat roundabout way past 
his mother’s plate, slyly across to his aunt, to 
see whether it looked like an order to go to bed 
at once. And it was so beautiful today, how 
beautiful the running about this evening after 
school would be! 

There was no order, for the general attention 
was claimed by ’Lizebeth, who with the same 
signs of snorting anger threw more than placed 
the rest of the meal on the table and then 
grumbled herself out again. 

As soon as dinner was over the father put on 
his little velvet cap and went in perfect silence 
out into the garden. For the storms in the 
house were more unpleasant to him than those 
that come from the sky. As soon as he had 
left the room ’Lizebeth stood in the doorway, 
both arms akimbo and looking quite warlike; 
she said: “I should think it would make no 
difference if I were to make a call on Marianne. 
I should think it is fully four years since I went 
to see her in the Middle Lot.” 

[43 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

The pastor’s wife had listened with astonish- 
ment to this speech, which sounded very re- 
proachful. Now she said soothingly: “But, 
’Lizebeth, I should hope that you do not think 
that I would oppose your going to Marianne or 
anywhere else ; or that I ever have done so. Do 
go as soon as you feel like it.” 

“Just as if nothing had to be done, and as if 
I were and had been on a visit in the parsonage 
at Upper Wood for fifty years and more,” was 
the answer. “No, no, I know what has to be 
done if no one else does. I can wait until Sun- 
day afternoon; that is a time when the likes of 
me may go out, and if it suits the lady then, 
then I go, and shall not stay away very long. 
Why.^ I know why if no one else knows it.” 

“Of course that suits me, too,” the lady 
pacified again, “do just what you think best.” 
She did not say more for she had already 
noticed that a fire of anger was kindled in ’Lize- 
beth which would blaze up if another word fell 
in it. She could not imagine what had struck 
’Lizebeth, but she found it more advisable not 
to touch on it. So ’Lizebeth grumbled for a 
little while, then she went away, since no further 
chance for outbreaks was offered. But there 
was no peace during the whole week ; all noticed 
that, and each went carefully by ’Lizebeth as 
[44 ] 


XIZEBETH ON THE WARPATH 

if she were a powder magazine which, at a care- 
less touch, might fly up in the air at any 
moment. At last Sunday came. Xizebeth, 
after dinner, rushed about the kitchen with 
such a great noise, one could notice that many 
thoughts were working in her which she tried 
to give vent to. But she went into her room 
only after everything was bright and in its 
place. 

She dressed herself in her Sunday-best and 
entered the sitting-room to take leave, just as 
though she was going on a long journey, for it 
was an event for Xizebeth to leave the par- 
sonage for several hours. Now she wandered 
with slow steps along the road and looked to 
the right and left on the way to see what was 
growing in the field belonging to this or that 
neighbor. But her thoughts began again to 
work in her; one could see that, for she began to 
walk quicker and quicker and to talk half aloud 
to herself. Now she had arrived. Marianne 
had seen her from her little window and was 
surprised that this time Xizebeth was so soon 
keeping her promise. For years she had prom- 
ised, had sent the messages that she would soon 
come; but she had never come and now she 
was there after the message had been brought 
only three days ago. Marianne went to meet 
[45 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

her friend with a pleasant smile and welcomed 
her near the hedge before the cottage ; then she 
conducted her guest around the cottage and up 
the narrow, wooden stairs. ’Lizebeth did not 
like this way and before she had reached the 
top of the stairs she had to speak out. 

‘‘Listen, Marianne,” she said, “formerly one 
dared to come in the front door and through 
the kitchen, but now your oldest friends have 
to come by the back way, which, no doubt, is 
on account of the strange people whom you 
have taken into your house. I have heard 
much of them and now I see for myself that 
they, from pure pride, do not know what to 
order next, that you dare not go through your 
own house.” 

“Dear me, ’Lizebeth, what queer thoughts 
you do have,” said Marianne, quite frightened. 
“That is not true, no one has forbidden me 
anything. And the people are so good and 
not a bit proud, and so friendly, and so kind 
and humble.” 

“Catch your breath, Marianne,” ’Lizebeth 
interrupted her; “with all your excitement 
you cannot prove that white is black, and when 
such people come along, no one knows whence, 
and take a living-room and a bedroom in such 
a hut, so hidden as yours is, Marianne, where 
[46 ] 


XIZEBETH ON THE WARPATH 

they pay next to nothing, and the woman struts 
about in a silk skirt and her little son in velvet ; 
then there is something behind it all, and if she 
has silk skirts then she must have other things 
too, and she must know why she hides all these 
things in a hut which really does not look larger 
than a large henhouse. I wanted only to warn 
you, Marianne; you surely will be the loser 
with such a crowd.” 

“’Lizebeth,” Marianne said now more em- 
phatically than she had ever been known to 
speak, “it would be well, if all people were as 
this woman is, and you and I could thank God 
if we were like her. I have never in this world 
seen a better and a more patient and a more 
amiable human being. And in regard to the 
silk skirt, please be still and do not talk about 
it, ’Lizebeth; many a thing looks different to 
what it really is, and it would be better for you, 
if you would not load your conscience with 
wrong against a suffering woman on whom God 
has His eye.” 

Marianne did not wish to tell what she 
knew, that the lady had only the one skirt and 
no other whatsoever, and so, of course, was 
obliged to wear it. She did not want to tell 
that to ’Lizebeth now she heard how the latter 
judged. 


E47] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

‘‘I do not think of loading my conscience 
with anything,” ’Lizebeth continued, ‘‘and 
that much is not as it looks, that I know ; but 
when a little boy of whom no one knows from 
where he came, wears velvet pants on bright 
week-days and even a velvet jacket, then they 
are velvet pants and do not only look so, that 
is certain. There is something behind that and 
it will come out and it will not look the best. 
Yes indeed, wearing velvet pants, such a little 
tramp of whom no one knows from where he 
comes, yes indeed.” 

“Do not sin against the dear boy,” Mari- 
anne said seriously. “Look at him and you 
will see that he looks like a little angel, and he 
is one.” 

“So, that too,” ’Lizebeth continued, “and 
pray when did you see an angel, Marianne, 
that you know he looks just like them? I 
should like to know! But I have served over 
fifty years in a respectable house, and I have 
helped to bring up the old parson, and the 
present one and his two sons; but we have 
never known anything of velvet pants, no, 
never, and we were, I should think, different 
people from these. That is what I wanted to 
tell you, Marianne, and that is the main reason 
why I came to you, so that you should know 
[48 3 


’LIZEBETH ON THE WARPATH 

what one is forced to think. And with regard 
to the angels, I can tell you that we have a little 
boy that looks exactly like the angels that blow 
the trumpets in the picture ; such fat, firm, red 
cheeks has our Moritzli, like painted, and such 
round arms and legs.” 

“Yes, it is true, little Ritz was always a 
splendid little fellow, I should like to see him 
again,” Marianne answered good-naturedly. 

This reconciled ’Lizebeth a little; in a much 
friendlier tone she said: “Then come again to 
Upper Wood, you will have time, more than I. 
Then you can look at the other, too, and can 
see what a pretty, straight nose he has, that no 
angel could have a prettier one, and in the whole 
school he is by far the brightest, — that the 
teacher himself says of Eduardi.” 

’Lizebeth always called the boys by their 
full names, for the shortening of the names, 
Ritz and Edi, seemed to her a degrading of 
their names and an injustice to her favorites. 

“Yes, yes, I believe you. What a delight it 
must be to see such a well-ordered household 
and all so happy together and so joyous,” 
Marianne said with a sigh, and she threw a 
glance at the room of the stranger, and now 
’Lizebeth was completely pacified, for she felt 
the parsonage again on the top. 

[49 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

“What is the matter with the people?” she 
asked with compassion. 

“I do not know what to say,” was the answer, 
“I do not understand it all myself.” 

“I thought as much, with such strangers one 
is never secure.” 

“No, no, I did not mean anything like that,” 
Marianne opposed. “I tell you they are the 
best people one could find. I would do any- 
thing for the woman.” 

Marianne did not like to tell her friend what 
she knew and to consult with her about things 
she could not comprehend, for ’Lizebeth had 
evidently no love for the two and was full of 
distrust, and Marianne had taken them both 
into her heart so that she could not bear sharp 
remarks about them even from her good friend. 
She therefore was silent and Xizebeth could 
get nothing more out of her concerning her 
lodgers. 

During this long talk a good deal of time 
had passed. Xizebeth rose from the wooden 
bench behind the table where she and Mari- 
anne had been sitting and was about to bid 
good-bye. But Marianne would not allow 
that, for the friend must first drink a cup of 
coffee; then she was going to walk with her. 
So they did, and as the two friends wandered 
[50 ] 


XIZEBETH ON THE WARPATH 

together through the evening, they had much to 
tell each other and were very talkative; only 
when ’Lizebeth began to talk about the 
strangers in Marianne’s house, was the latter 
silent and hardly spoke. Where the road 
went into the woods, they parted, and Mari- 
anne had to promise to return the call as soon 
as possible. Then ’Lizebeth stepped out 
vigorously and arrived at home in such good 
spirits that the parson’s wife resolved to send 
her often to Marianne on a visit. 

When Marianne on her return came near 
her cottage, she heard lovely singing; she well 
knew the song. Every evening at twilight the 
stranger sat down at the piano and sang, and 
she sang so beautifully and with a voice that 
came from such depths that it touched Mari- 
anne’s heart so that she could not tear her- 
self away when she heard the song, until it was 
ended. But there was one song in particular 
which Marianne loved to hear and which the 
woman sang every day, either at the beginning 
or the end of her songs. It always seemed as if 
a great joy came into her voice and as if she 
wanted to make this joy appeal to all who lis- 
tened. And yet this song touched Marianne’s 
heart so deeply that she wept every time she 
heard it. So it happened this evening. There 
[51 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

was a log lying before the house-door which 
served her for a resting-place when, in the 
evening, she wanted to get a little fresh air. 
She rolled it under the window so that she 
might look for a moment into the room . There 
sat the lady, and her large blue eyes looked up 
to the evening sky so seriously and sorrow- 
fully, and yet there was something which 
sounded again like a great joy in the beautiful 
song she was singing. The little boy sat on a 
footstool beside her and looked at his mother 
with his joyful, bright eyes, and listened to the 
singing. 

Marianne could not look long. A strange 
feeling came over her, and she stepped down 
from the log, put her apron to her eyes and 
wept and wept, until the singing had died 
away. 


[ 52 ] 


CHAPTER IV 

The Same Night in Two Houses 

on this evening Edi and Ritz were 
I in their bed and Mother had fin- 
i saying evening prayer with them 
had closed the door after her, Edi 
oegan: “Have you noticed, Ritz, that 
Father is almost like God? He already knows 
the thing before one has told half of it.” 

“No, I have never noticed that,” Ritz re- 
plied. “But it is all right, for then he can do 
everything he wants to and also make fine 
weather.” 

“Oh, Ritz, you only look at the profit! but 
just look at the other side.” Here Edi rose up 
in bed from pure zeal and continued : “ Do you 
remember, not long ago I recited our songs, 
which we made about the others, to Papa; 
then he knew at once that we were preparing 
a big fight and has forbidden us to take part in 
it. And this evening they all have talked it 
over that I should lead the boys of Upper 
Wood into battle, and I have thought it all 
over and prepared ahead. Then I would be 
[53 ] 



ERICK AND SALLY 

Fabius Cunctator, and would lead my troops 
above on the hill round and round it and would 
not attack, for you must know that is much 
safer, and so Hannibal could do nothing and 
could not attack me.” 

“Is Hannibal still living then.^” asked Ritz 
serenely. 

“Oh, Ritz, how indescribably ignorant you 
are!” Edi remarked compassionately. “He 
died more than a thousand years ago. But 
big Churi, the leader of the Middle Letters, our 
enemies, is Hannibal. But you see, I just re- 
member something: Churi is not a real Han- 
nibal, for he was a great and noble general, 
and Churi cannot represent him; but do you 
know what, we can take the strange boy Erick, 
for Hannibal! — ^he looks quite different from 
Churi, — shall we.^^” 

“That is all the same to me since we cannot 
be in the fight,” remarked Ritz. 

“That is true, we dare not, I had quite for- 
gotten that,” lamented Edi. “If I only knew 
what we could do to be in this fight and yet not 
do anything that is forbidden.” 

“Don’t you know an example in the world’s 
history.^” asked IJ^itz, to whom his brother 
presented so often, in cases of need, examples 
out of this rich fountain. 

[54 ] 


THE SAME NIGHT IN TWO HOUSES 

“ No. If we only lived like the old Greeks,” 
Edi answered with a deep sigh. “When they 
wanted to know anything of which no one 
knew the answer, they quickly drove to Delphi 
to the oracle and asked advice. Then there 
was an answer at once and they knew what was 
to be done. But now there are no more ora- 
cles, not even in Greece. Isn’t that too bad.^” 

“Yes, that is too bad,” said Ritz rather 
sleepily, “but I am sure you will think of 
another example.” 

Edi began at once to think, but however 
much he thought, and groped in his memory 
and upheaved what he had stored away in his 
brain, he could not find in the whole history of 
the world one single case where some one had 
carried out something that the father had for- 
bidden, and yet stood afterwards with honor 
before him. For that was what Edi was try- 
ing to find; and he was sitting straight up in his 
bed in the dark, and in spite of all his endeavors 
he could find no way out. And when he now 
heard the deep breathing of the sweetly sleep- 
ing Ritz, he became too discouraged to try 
any more. He lay down on his pillow and was 
soon dreaming about the uniform of Fabius 
Cunctator. 

Soon after this Marianne too lay down on 
[55 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

her couch, but for a long time sleep would not 
come. The singing of the lady downstairs had 
made her very, very sad; this voice had never 
before touched her so deeply as it had done this 
evening, and she still heard the sound of weep- 
ing and rejoicing in confusion. So Marianne 
heard the old clock on the wall strike eleven, 
then twelve, and yet she could not go to sleep. 
Now it seemed to her as if she heard a gentle 
knocking below in the house. Who could 
want anything of her so late in the night She 
must be mistaken, she said to herself. But no, 
she now heard it quite plainly, somebody was 
knocking somewhere. She quickly dressed her- 
self and hastened down to the kitchen. She 
opened the front door — ^no one was there. 
But the knocking came again and now Mari- 
anne thought that it came from the sleeping 
room of her boarders. Softly she opened the 
door of the room. Within the pale lady sat 
on her bed, but she was much paler than usual, 
so that Marianne stepped quickly into the 
room, and much frightened, she exclaimed: 
“Dear me! What is the matter Oh how 
bad you do look!” 

“Yes, I feel very ill, my good Marianne,” 
the lady answered with her friendly voice. 
“I am so sorry that I frightened you so in the 
[ 56 : 


THE SAME NIGHT IN TWO HOUSES 

middle of the night; but I had no rest, I was 
obliged to call you. I have a few things to tell 
you and it might have been too late.” 

“Dear, dear! what do you mean.?” lamented 
Marianne. “ I will get the doctor at once from 
Lower Wood, — he is the nearest.” 

“No, Marianne, I thank you, I know my 
condition,” said the sick woman soothingly, 
“it is a cramp in my heart, which often comes 
and this time more terribly than usual, and so, 
my good Marianne, I wanted to tell you that 
if I am no longer here tomorrow, will you give 
this,” (and she gave a small paper to Marianne), 
“to him who has to prepare for my last resting- 
place. It is the only thing that I leave, and 
which I have saved for a long time, so that I 
need not be buried in a pauper’s grave. That 
must not be, for my father’s sake,” she added, 
very softly. 

“Dear, dear Lord!” Marianne lamented, 
“grant that it may not be that! Do think of 
the dear little boy! Dear Mrs. Dorn, do not 
take it amiss, I have never before asked any- 
thing at all, but if you leave nothing, what have 
I to do with the dear boy? Has he no rela- 
tives? Has he no father?” 

The mother looked at the sleeping Erick, 
who, with his golden curls encircling his rosy 
[ 57 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

face, lay there so peacefully and so care- 
free. She put her hand on his forehead — for 
his narrow bed stood quite close to hers — and 
said softly: “On earth you have no father any 
more, my child, but above in heaven there 
lives a Father who will not forsake you. I 
have given you long since to Him. I know He 
will care for you and protect you, so I can go 
quietly and joyfully. Yes, my good Marianne,” 
she turned again to the latter, “I have done a 
great wrong; I have hurt deeply the best of 
fathers through disobedience and selfishness. 
For that I have suffered much; but in my suf- 
fering it was permitted me to learn how great 
the love and compassion of our Father in 
heaven is for His children, and since then a 
song of deepest gratitude sounds ever and ever 
in my heart: 

‘I lay in heaviest fetters. 

Thou com’st and set’st me free; 

I stood in shame and sorrow. 

Thou callest me to Thee; 

And lift’st me up to honor 
And giv’st me heavenly joys 
Which cannot be diminished 
By earthly scorn and noise.’” 

The sick woman had folded her hands while 
[ 58 ] 


THE SAME NIGHT IN TWO HOUSES 

she spoke, and in her eyes there was a wonder- 
ful light; but now she sank back on her pillows, 
exhausted and pale. Marianne stood there 
quietly and now and then had to wipe her eyes. 

“But now I must run to the doctor, — it is 
high time,” she said, frightened. “Mrs. Dom, 
can I give you anything?” 

“No, I thank you,” the sick woman an- 
swered softly. “I thank you for everything, 
my good Marianne.” 

The latter now hastily left the house and ran 
as fast as she could through the silent night 
toward Lower Wood. From time to time she 
had to stop to get her breath. Then she looked 
up to the bright star-covered sky and prayed : 
“Dear God, help us all.” She had great diffi- 
culty in awakening the doctor in Lower Wood 
at two o’clock in the night; but at last he heard 
her knocking and followed her soon after on the 
road to her house. When they entered to- 
gether the room of the sick woman, the light 
had burned down and threw a faint light on the 
quiet, pale face. The mother had stretched 
out her arm upon the bed of her child. The 
boy had encircled her slender, white hand with 
both his plump hands, and held it firmly. 
The doctor approached and looked closer at 
the sleeper; he bent over her for some moments. 

[ 59 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

“Marianne,” he said, “loosen the hand out 
of the little boy’s. The woman is sleeping her 
eternal sleep, she will nevermore awaken on 
this earth. She must have died suddenly from 
heart failure, while you were away to fetch 
me.” 

The doctor left the quiet house at once, and 
Marianne did as he had told her. She folded 
the hands of the departed one on her breast, 
then she sat down on Erick’s bed, looking now 
at the serious face of the dead mother, now at 
the care-free sleeping boy, and wept quietly, 
until the rays of the morning sun fell into the 
quiet room and roused Marianne to the con- 
sciousness that a new, sad day had begun — a, 
day on which Erick had to be told that he never 
again on this earth could take hold of the loving 
hand of his mother. 


[ 60 ] 



CHAPTER V 

Disturbance in School and Home 

JfEVER before had the schoolmaster of 
Upper Wood had such hard work with 
his schoolchildren as on the morning 
after this night. Of course there were 
times that some were more restless and 
more dense than usual; but there were usually 
a good many with whom he could work suc- 
cessfully. But today it seemed as though a 
crowd of excited spirits had taken possession 
of the children. All the boys cast uncanny, 
warlike glances at each other, even suppressed 
threatenings were thrust hither and thither, 
and when the teacher turned his back such 
threatening gestures were made to those who 
faced him, that they, one and all, rolled their 
eyes with wrath and gave the most ridiculous 
answers. They all were so eager for the battle, 
that they could no longer distinguish between 
friend and foe, and each shook his clenched 
fist at the other. 

Sally and Kaetheli, those model scholars, 
kept putting their heads together and whis- 
[61 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

pered continuously like the ripple of a brook. 
Yes, indeed, Kaetheli was so brim full of news 
that she even kept on whispering to Sally while 
the latter had to answer questions in arith- 
metic and of course got into the most inex- 
plicable confusion. Even Edi, the very best 
scholar, forgot his studies and was staring 
sadly before him. For just now had come 
before his mind’s eye, during the rest-period, 
the great bravery of his troops who, from 
want of a real enemy, had put each other in a 
sorry shape. And he was not allowed to lead 
these courageous soldiers against the boasting 
Churi, and to show this fellow how a great 
general does his work! The teacher was just 
standing before him and called on him, con- 
tinuing in the geography lesson: “Edi, will 
you tell me the most important productions of 
Upper Italy?” 

Italy! At the sound of that name, the 
whole war operation stood before Edi’s eyes, 
for he had studied the minutest details of that 
region where the Romans had met their ene- 
mies, and Churi, as Hannibal, stood trium- 
phant before him. Edi, heaving a deep sigh, 
answered nothing for the present. 

“Edi,” the master said when no answer 
came, “I cannot understand what sadness can 
[ 62 ] 


DISTURBANCE IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

be found in our topic, nor what can burden 
your mind, but one thing I can see, that today 
you all are like a herd of thoughtless sheep 
with whom nothing can be done. Kaetheli, 
you magpie, can you stop a moment and 
listen to what I am saying.^ You all are going 
home. I have had enough, and everyone — 
do you understand — everyone takes home 
some home-work for punishment. As you go 
out, come to my desk, one after the other, and 
each will receive his special task.” 

So it was done, and at once the whole crowd 
rushed with joyous hearts into the open. For 
the home-work did not at all suppress the joy 
that school had closed a whole half-hour early. 
Outside on the playground, the groups who 
had common interests at once crowded to- 
gether. The largest throng pressed around 
Edi, to listen with much shouting and noise 
to his battle plans. 

At once after leaving the schoolroom Kaetheli 
took Sally by the hand and said: “I will go 
with you for a while, then I can finish telling 
you what Marianne told Mother this morn- 
ing.” With this Kaetheli continued her story, 
which she had begun in school, and told Sally 
everything that had happened last night in 
Marianne’s cottage. Sally listened very quiet- 
[63 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

ly and never said a word. When they arrived 
at the garden, Kaetheli had just finished her 
sad tale; she stood still for a moment and was 
surprised that Sally did not say anything; 
then she said, “Good-bye!” and ran away. 

At the noon meal Ritz related faithfully all 
that had happened in school: for now, since 
Sally and even Edi had received home-tasks, 
he found that to be more remarkable than 
sorrowful. Edi seemed somewhat dejected. 
When now the small, golden, roasted apples 
were placed on the table, Ritz stopped his 
report and applied himself thoroughly to the 
work of eating them. When he had cleared 
his plate, which was done very quickly, he 
looked slyly at the plates of his brother and 
sister, for he knew that the second supply of 
the things on the table came only after all 
three had finished their first. WTien he looked 
at Sally, his eyes stayed on her, and after he 
had watched her attentively for some time, he 
said: “Sally, you keep on swallowing as much 
as you can, but you see, nothing can go down, 
because you have put nothing into your mouth, 
and your plate stays filled.” 

Now Sally could not restrain her tears longer, 
for she had with great difiiculty swallowed 
them, and had been very quiet. Now she 
[64 3 


DISTURBANCE IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

burst out into loud sobbing and said through 
her tears : “ Poor Erick, too, cannot eat today. 
Now he has neither father nor mother and is 
all alone in the world.” 

Sally’s weeping grew louder and louder, for 
she could not stop, since she had restrained 
herself so long. Ritz looked, surprised and 
startled, from one to the other; he did not 
quite understand whether he was to blame 
for this. The mother rose, took Sally by the 
hand, and led her out of the room. 

This incident caused a great disturbance at 
the midday meal. The father was annoyed 
and sat without saying a word. The aunt, 
with great animation, tried to point out to him 
with this proof, how excitable children become 
when they do not go to bed in good time. 
Edi, too, sat quite ill-humoredly before his 
plate, as if he had to swallow sorrel instead of 
little golden apples; for he felt much troubled 
that his father had heard of his inattention in 
the school. Ritz had expected a kind of ad- 
monishing speech from him, because the out- 
burst had taken place right after he had spoken 
to Sally. Since it did not come and no one 
seemed to trouble about him, he settled him- 
self firmly in his seat and ate everything that 
was on Sally’s and his mother’s plates. 

[65 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

When the father went out in the garden soon 
after, the mother followed him and led him to 
the small bench under the apple tree. Seated 
there she told him what Sally, continuously 
interrupted by loud sobbing, had told her: 
what had happened during the past night in 
Marianne’s cottage. And she now asked her 
husband whether he did not think that some 
enquiries ought to be made about these 
strangers, and whether one ought not to do 
something for the little boy who, as it seemed, 
was standing all alone in the world. But the 
pastor was not of her opinion, and said that 
these people had turned to Lower Wood for 
school and church, therefore he could not inter- 
fere at present. His colleague in Lower Wood 
would no doubt take everything in hand and 
see what could be done with the boy. He was 
sure that the pastor in Lower Wood would find 
some relations of the boy, and he perhaps knew 
already more about the strangers, than was sus- 
pected. The woman, no doubt, had confided 
in his colleague about herself, since she would 
have had to do that as she had sent her boy 
to Lower Wood to school, and perhaps also 
to Sunday school. One could not possibly 
give in to Sally in all her manifold emotions 
and pay attention to them. The child had too 
[ 66 ] 


DISTURBANCE IN SCHOOL AND HOME 
vivid an imagination and was yet too young to 
have the gift of discrimination, and if one 
should give in to her fancies one soon would fill 
the house with Leopoldys and other creatures, 
who soon would be turned out of the house or, 
at least, be pushed aside by the same Sally, 
as soon as she saw that the good people were 
not as she had imagined them. 

“I have to take Sally’s part somewhat, dear 
husband,” said the mother. “You are right, 
she feels very strongly, and she shows these 
feelings to everyone whom she meets ; but I do 
not find that wrong, for, wherever she meets 
with a response, there she remains faithful to 
her feelings, and she loves her friends warmly 
and constantly. With what devotion has she 
adhered to Kaetheli from babyhood! And I 
much prefer that she go through life with her 
warm heart, and expect to find a friend in every 
human being, than that she should pass people 
indifferently, and have no conception of friend- 
ship, although she may meet with many a 
disappointment and many a condemnation 
through this trait.” 

“Both will be her share, in plenty,” said the 
father. “In this direction we therefore will do 
our share in saving her from these things as 
much as she can be saved.” 

[ 67 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

So the mother saw that the best that could 
be done was to pacify Sally and to explain to 
her that nothing could be done at present but 
something would be done later from another 
source. 

When it became known that the strange 
woman had died, there was a great deal of talk, 
especially among the Middle Letters, in whose 
midst the woman had lived, but had never been 
seen — a fact which had always caused suspi- 
cion. Since no one knew anything about her 
past life, then everyone had the more to say 
about who she might have been. At any rate, 
nothing very good, in that they all agreed, else 
she would have been friendly with them and 
would not have kept herself so apart. When 
now no relations appeared and she had to be 
buried without any mourners, then a number 
of stories began to circulate which became 
more and more mysterious. For the official 
of the community had said that, no doubt, she 
had been an exile, and the Justice of Peace 
had added that then she must have committed 
very great political crimes. ’Lizebeth was not 
loath to bring these stories to the pastor and 
his wife, for she had never been able to over- 
come the thought of the velvet pants. The 
pastor’s wife shook her head incredulously and 
[68 ] 


DISTURBANCE IN SCHOOL AND HOME 

forbade ’Lizebeth to carry the stories further. 
The pastor said: “ There must have been some- 
thing crooked, but the woman is now buried, 
and we will say nothing more about it.” 

Marianne alone stood opposed to all and 
told them to their faces that it was an injus- 
tice and wickedness to talk as they did; none 
of them had known the woman, else they would 
know that there was nothing bad about her, 
but that she had been an angel of goodness, 
gentleness and kindly deeds. And although 
the lady had appeared as aristocratic as a prin- 
cess, she had been more friendly with humble 
folk, such as Marianne, than many a Middle 
Letter who ran about in torn stockings. But 
if Marianne was asked if she had known the 
woman well, who she was, and why not a single 
relative enquired after her, although the notice 
of her death was put into all the papers ; then 
she too could give no explanation, since she 
did not know anything. 

A few wicked people then said: ‘‘No doubt 
Marianne will have had her profit from it.” 
But she had not, and never had looked for it. 
The woman had paid the low rent in advance 
for the month, which had just ended; it had 
been the month of August. When now, imme- 
diately after the funeral of the poor woman, the 
[ 69 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

officials came and looked to see what the inher- 
itance of the little boy would be, then it was 
found that there was nothing but the piano 
and the black silk skirt. The officials decided 
to give the latter to Marianne, since she had 
rendered her the last services and put her in 
her last bed. 

The dress had once been very beautiful, for 
the material was heavy and costly, but it was 
much worn, and yet Marianne thought: ‘Tt is 
too handsome for me. I will not wear it but it 
is a dear remembrance,” for she had only seen 
the dear woman in that one dress. While 
they were still talking over what should be 
done with the piano, the landlord of the Krone 
in Lower Wood drove up with an empty wagon 
and took the piano, the beds, the table and the 
two easy chairs, for everything had been hired 
from him ; but he had been paid in advance up 
to this time. 

So nothing was left for the little boy but the 
velvet suit that he wore. Now they began to 
talk about what was to be done with the boy, 
and some propositions were made as to how he 
could be cared for. At this point Marianne 
stepped forth and said that she would keep the 
little boy until she was leaving. In three 
weeks she was going to move down to Oakwood 
[ 70 ] 


DISTURBANCE IN SCHOOL AND HOME 
to her cousin’s, for her house was as good as 
sold. The officials were greatly pleased with 
this offer; many things could turn up in three 
weeks, and for the time being the little waif 
was cared for. So they parted from one 
another satisfied with their work. 


[71 ] 


CHAPTER VI 
A Lost Hymn 

IE next morning, when the mother lay 
still and pale on her bed, Erick woke 
up ; Marianne, who had watched for his 
wakening, came to his couch and said : 
“Dear Erick, your mother has gone, 
last night, to heaven, and now she feels very 
happy, and looks down on you and watches to 
see whether you stay good and honest so that 
sometime you may come to her.” 

First he had answered quite quietly: “Yes, 
I know. Mother has told me that it would come 
so.” But when he went to his mother and 
looked at her for a long, long time and she 
did not open her eyes, then he sat down on a 
footstool and cried quietly. As long as his 
mother lay there he could not be made to leave 
her, and when she was carried out, then he sat 
down in the spot where she always had sat, and 
did not go away the whole day. But he was 
quite still, and although he wept, he did it so 
quietly that no sound could be heard. 

The day after the officials had been there 
[72 ] 



A LOST HYMN 

and Marianne had taken Erick from the empty 
room upstairs to her little home, she thought 
that it would be best if he were to go to school 
and again come in contact with other children, 
so that he might become happy again and make 
a little noise with them; for this quiet weeping 
seemed sadder to Marianne than if he had 
sobbed aloud. So she told him on that morn- 
ing, that it would be best for him if he were to 
go to school. In an instant Erick obeyed, took 
out his books, packed them in his bag and 
started on his way to school. So it went on 
from day to day, and gradually it seemed to 
Marianne-^that Erick grew more and more as 
he used to be; but the sunny, joyous face which 
he used to have had not yet returned, and 
something like shyness had come to him, 
which never before had been noticed in him. It 
seemed as if a safe, strong wall, which formerly 
had protected him, had fallen down, and as 
though he looked for the first time on things 
and people which surrounded him and which 
were strange to him. The safe wall had been 
the great love of his mother, which had 
encircled him everywhere. 

Two weeks had passed since Erick had again 
gone to school. When lessons were over, he 
had never waited until the scholars of the 
[73 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

Middle Lot had gathered to make a noisy jour- 
ney home, but he had run away at once and 
had walked the long way alone. When he 
came home, he found his piece of bread and his 
cup of milk ready on the table if Marianne was 
not there to give it to him. When she was 
there, she often said: “Go out a little to play 
with the children, Erick, it will be good for you 
and you will have time afterwards to do your 
lessons.” Erick had always gone out, as far as 
the hedge before the house, and had stopped 
and watched how here and there the children 
were running about and playing all kinds of 
games; but he had never joined them. 

So also today, he stood there and looked 
with surprised eyes across at the freshly mown 
meadow, where a crowd of Middle Lot children 
were playing with much noise “Catch me if 
you can.” Big Churi was running after 
Kaetheli and as she knew what heavy blows 
from those big fists would fall upon her back 
if she should be caught, she rushed over the 
field toward the hedge and into Marianne’s 
little garden, almost throwing down Erick on 
her way. At this instant the quick-running 
Churi would have caught Kaetheli; but quick 
as a deer, Erick rushed forth, opened his arms 
wide and so stopped Churi until Kaetheli had 
[ 74 ] 


A LOST HYMN 

shot around the cottage, fleet as an arrow, and 
again to her goal on the meadow, where she could 
get her breath without fear of being caught. 

Churi grumbled: ‘‘Another time you leave 
me alone, or — ” With this he shook his fist at 
Erick and then ran away, for he hoped to 
catch Kaetheli before she should reach her 
goal. When the latter had rested a little she 
came running back again, for she indeed had 
felt Erick’s chivalrous service and she was very 
grateful to him. She therefore could not see 
him standing so alone, but ran up to him and 
said cheeringly: “Come and play with us, you 
must not always stand so alone, that is lone- 
some.” 

“No,” said Erick, “I cannot play with you. 
I do not want to shout so terribly.” 

“You need not scream, that does not be- 
long to the game. Come along ! ” Saying this, 
Kaetheli took Erick’s hand firmly in hers and 
pulled him along. 

Erick played with the rest, and now he had 
begun he played with all his might. They had 
stopped the game of “Catch” and were play- 
ing a circle game. The children had formed a 
large circle and held each other’s hands. In 
the middle of the circle stood the excluded 
child. This child had to strike someone’s hand 
[75 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

at random and then there was a race around 
the circle to see who would first get in the open 
space inside. This game was played with the 
greatest zeal; but suddenly Erick pulled his 
hands away from his neighbors’ and ran away, 
so that great confusion arose. 

‘‘We will not let him play any more,” cried 
Churi, much angered. 

“Indeed we will,” maintained Kaetheli 
firmly, “perhaps a wasp has stung him, or per- 
haps they play the same game where he used 
to live. When he returns he can take my 
hand. Now we will go on.” 

So it was done, and soon after they were 
playing again with great glee, and Erick was 
forgotten. 

Not far from their playground stood a blind 
man with a barrel-organ playing his melodies. 
When Erick had heard the first notes, he had 
freed himself and had run away. Now he 
stood at a little distance from the organ grinder 
and listened with strained attention to all the 
melodies. When the man left, the boy went 
quietly toward the cottage, and when Mari- 
anne saw him come, she said to herself: “I had 
hoped that the children would make him merry 
again, and now it seems to me that he is sadder 
than he was before.” 


[ 76 ] 


A LOST HYMN 

From that time on Kaetheli looked every 
evening, when the games began, to see whether 
Erick was standing near the hedge, and when 
she saw him there she ran to get him. Erick 
now played every day with the children and 
when he was in the spirit of the game, he 
looked quite happy. But almost every evening 
the same thing occurred as on the first. In the 
midst of the game Erick stopped, ran away and 
did not return. Once a number of wandering 
journeymen had passed by; they had sung 
loud and joyously their wander-songs, one 
after the other. Away was Erick, and one 
could see him far away, quietly following the 
singing men. Once trumpet blasts sounded 
across the meadow to the playing children — 
for one of Middle Lot was with the players in 
the army and was practising his marches — at 
once Erick ran away in the direction of the 
sounds. Another time a boy with a harmonica 
had approached the playing children; it was 
Erick’s turn just then to seek the hiders, but 
' threatenings and pleadings were of no avail, he 
did not seek any more. He placed himself in 
front of the boy and listened to him; there he 
remained standing and did not stir. 

Churi in his hiding-place was about to burst 
with anger because Erick stopped seeking. 

[ 77 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

He had hoped that Erick would exhaust him- 
self looking for him, for Churi had climbed 
up the high pear-tree which stood in the centre 
of their playground, and from there he could 
overlook Erick’s inactivity and his stubborn 
resistance to being moved. Kaetheli too had 
become impatient, for in the farthest corner of 
the goat-shed, whither she had crawled, she 
felt herself secure from being found, and now, 
all at once, she discovered that there was no 
more seeking, and she could easily guess the 
cause. With a good deal of trouble she crawled 
out again, with many signs of her hiding-place 
on her dress for she had been obliged to sit 
crouched. She ran to Erick, who was still in 
the same spot, near the harmonica player. 

“I should like to know what is the matter 
with you,” she called out. “Every evening, 
just when we have the greatest fun, all at once 
you run away like a hare, or you stand there 
like a statue and let everything go as it will. 
But that will not do! Come and seek us. 
But first I must hide again.” 

The tones of the harmonica had just stopped 
and the boy had gone. Erick took a deep 
breath and said: “I cannot play any more. 
I must go home.” 

He turned away and went; but that annoyed 
[ 78 ] 


A LOST HYMN 

Kaetheli. She ran after him and talked angrily 
at him. “That is not nice of you, Erick; you 
need not have done that. You have spoiled 
the game now four or five times — that is surely 
not kind of you, do you think it is.^’’ They 
had by this time arrived at Marianne’s cottage. 
Erick stopped at the hedge and turned round. 
He said, quite friendly: “Do not be angry, 
Kaetheli, you see I have to act so.” 

“Yes, but why.f^ Tell me now, what you do 
and why you have to spoil everything.^” de- 
manded Kaetheli, rather huffed, for she could 
not yet get over the fact that she had crawled 
all for nothing into the incomparable hiding- 
place in the goat-shed. 

“I will tell you, Kaetheli, for you must not 
think that I purposely spoil everything for you. 
I did not think of that,” said Erick, excusing 
himself. “ Do you see, there is a beautiful song 
which my mother sang every day, and also 
on the last day, and I should so much like to 
hear that song again. But no one sings it, and 
I may listen wherever I like, I hear only other 
things. Oh, if I could only hear that song 
again, just once!” 

Now Kaetheli saw how Erick’s eyes filled 
with big tears, and in an instant her anger 
turned into pity. “You must not be sad on 
[ 79 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

that account, for I can help you,” she said 
readily. “I know so many songs ; tell me what 
the name of yours is, then I will say it to you 
right away.” 

“I try to remember it all the time, but I can- 
not get the words together; but I remember well 
the melody. Do you think you could guess 
the words, if I sing the melody?” 

“Of course I can, you just sing on,” en- 
couraged Kaetheli, with confidence. 

Erick sang a line, and then another, and still 
a bit, then he could not go further. Kaetheli, 
surprised, shook her head. “I never have 
heard that song, but perhaps we sing it, only a 
little differently. I am sure I shall find it. 
Tell me what it is about, about people or 
animals?” 

“At the beginning about fiowers, green 
trees, you know, with those beautiful branches 
and—” 

“Stop, I know all,” Kaetheli interrupted 
him; “now I am going to sing it to you.” 
And with a firm voice and full tones Kaetheli 
began seriously: 

“‘Three roses in the garden. 

Three birds are in the wood. 

In summer it is lovely 
In winter it is good.’ 

[ 80 ] 


A LOST HYMN 

Is that it?” she now asked, full of confidence 
that it must be it. But Erick shook his head 
decidedly, and said: 

“No, no, that is not my song, there is no 
similarity between it and what you sing.” 

Kaetheli was much surprised. “But the 
flowers and the trees are in the song,” she said, 
“or perhaps, Erick, you have forgotten the 
song and do not know how it goes?” 

“Indeed, indeed I know,” the latter assured 
her. “You see, first there is a great feast, 
where they all come and throw down many 
flowers and wreaths because a great lord is 
coming and — ” 

“Perhaps a count,” Kaetheli interposed. 

“Perhaps so.” 

“ Oh ! now I know it ! If you only had spoke 
of the count right away; now listen!” And 
again Kaetheli began with full tones : 

“‘I stood on a high mountain 
And looked into a vale, 

A little ship came swimming 
Three counts did hoist the sail.’ 

Well, Erick?”’ 

But Erick shook his head even more and 
said sadly : “ Not at all, not a bit like it ! Per- 
[81 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
haps the song is lost and no one knows any- 
thing about it.” 

“I know something else to help you,” said 
helpful Kaetheli, whose tender heart was filled 
with compassion. ‘‘To be sure, it is a little 
late, but I can still do it.” 

Then she ran away, and Erick looked after 
her with great surprise, and wondered where 
she was going to look for the song. 

Running all the way, Kaetheli had reached 
the bottom of the hill in a quarter of an hour. 
On the garden wall stood Ritz. “Get Sally, 
Ritz, but be quick,” Kaetheli called up to him. 
That just suited Ritz, for he hoped that some- 
thing particular was in store, and before Kaeth- 
eli reached the wall, Sally was brought out. 

Breathlessly Kaetheli told her what she 
wanted and now expected, since Sally knew so 
many songs that she would bring out the de- 
sired one on the spot. But it was not accom- 
plished so quickly and there followed a long 
explanation, for Sally must know all that was 
to be found in the song, whether it was joyous 
or sad, and then she began to guess and to try 
whether it could be this one or that, but none 
seemed to fit according to the descriptions, and 
suddenly Kaetheli jumped up and exclaimed: 
“The evening bells are ringing; I have to go 
[82 ] 


A LOST HYMN 

home. I am afraid that father will be at supper 
before me and then he’ll scold. I thought you 
would know it much quicker, Sally, such a 
simple song ! Think it over and bring it to me 
at school, but sure, for else Erick will be sad 
again . Good night ! ’ ’ 

Kaetheli was away like a shot, and Sally 
went thoughtfully back to the house. Very 
soon the sitting-room was lighted up, where 
mother and aunt were seated at the table, and 
now the father also sat down. Edi had long 
since waited with his book to see whether the 
lamp would be lighted in the room, for his 
mother had forbidden him to read in the twi- 
light. Ritz sat down to finish, with many a 
sigh, a delayed arithmetic lesson. Now Sally 
entered the room; under each arm she carried 
four or five books of different sizes and make- 
up. Panting under the heavy load she threw 
them on the table. 

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” cried Auntie, 
frightened, “now Sally will turn into a histori- 
cal searcheress.” 

“No, no,” cried Sally, ‘‘only give me a little 
room, I am obliged to look for something.” 
She sat down at once behind the heap of books 
and began her work in earnest. But she did 
not remain undisturbed for long, for the large 
C 83 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
amount of reading material which she had 
brought in attracted the eyes of all, and all at 
once the father, who had looked at the books 
from over his paper, said: 

“Sally, I see a book which is little suited 
for you to read. Where did you get the 
Niebelungen song?’’ 

“I was just going to ask,” said the mother, 
“what you intended to do with A. M. Arndt’s 
war songs?” 

Sally had taken along from all tables and 
book-cases what seemed to her a collection of 
songs. These two books she had found in her 
father’s study and now she explained that she 
had to find Erick’s lost song, and what Kaetheli 
had told her about what was in it. 

“Aha,” said Edi, and giggled a little, “on 
that account you took that book from the 
piano. Erick will be pleased with the words 
you will get from this.” 

He held the book before his sister and pointed 
with his finger to the title: “Songs Without 
Words”. Sally was not as thorough in her 
thinking as her brother was. She had, in the 
zeal of her intention, thought that these were 
some particular kind of songs, and she now 
looked with some confusion at the book in 
which only black notes were to be found. 

[84 ] 


A LOST HYMN 

Ritz, too, was now roused to interest in the 
doings. He too had taken up a book and read 
rather laboriously; “Battle Sonnets” from — 

“What! You have also been to my table, 
Sally?” the aunt interrupted the reader. “You 
children are really terrible! At any rate you 
ought to have been in bed long ago; it is high 
time, pack together.” 

But this time Sally showed herself unusually 
obstinate. She assured them that she could not 
sleep, not for the whole night, if she had not 
found the song. She must bring it to Kaetheli, 
as she had promised to do so, and from fear that 
she should not find the song Sally worked her- 
self into such a state of excitement that the 
mother interfered. She explained to the child 
that they were not the kind of books where 
such a song could be found, and that the de- 
scriptions which Kaetheli had given were much 
too uncertain to find any song. Sally herself 
should speak with Erick about what he still 
knew of his song, and then they would search 
for it together, for she too would gladly help 
the poor boy to keep in memory the song his 
mother had loved. 

These words pacified Sally and so she will- 
ingly packed together her books and put each 
in its place. 


[85 ] 


CHAPTER VII 

Erick Enlists in the Fighting Army 

EANWHILE the sunny September had 
approached and everywhere the apples 
and pears were smiling down from the 
trees. Every morning one could see 
the Mayor of Upper Wood walk toward 
the hillside, where he had started a new vine- 
yard where only reddish, sweet Alsatian grapes 
grew. The hillside lay toward the valley about 
a half-hour’s walk below Upper Wood; but the 
walk was not too far for the Mayor to watch 
the growth of his grapes, for they were of the 
most delicious kind. 

The Justice of Peace, Kaetheli’s father, had 
also a small vineyard on that side, but of a 
much inferior kind, and when he sometimes 
went to see whether his grapes would ripen 
this year, he always found the Mayor there, 
and usually said, pointing to the latter’s grapes : 
“A splendid plant.” 

And the Mayor answered: “I should think 
so. And this year will not be like last! Just 
let them come!” and with these words he held 
up his finger threateningly. 

[ 86 ] 



ERICK ENLISTS IN THE ARMY 
“If one only could get hold of one of that 
crowd/’ remarked the Justice of Peace, “so 
that one could make an example of him of 
what would happen to all the wicked fellows/’ 
“I have prepared for that, Justice of Peace,” 
the other answered, full of meaning. “The 
boldest of them will carry the reminder of the 
sweet grapes for weeks about with him and will 
be plainly marked.” 

This conversation had already been repeat- 
ed several times, for both men had an especial 
interest in the topic. But they soon had to 
pass to more important things, for in these 
communities all kinds of things happen. At 
present all the inhabitants of the three places 
were in great tension and expectation about 
something which caused so much talk that 
they hardly found time to attend to their daily 
business. The Upper Wooders had bought an 
organ for their church, which was to be dedi- 
cated the following Sunday. 

In the Middle Lot something was also tak- 
ing place. Old Marianne was busy packing 
up, for she could no longer keep her cottage. 
Her work was not enough to pay the running 
expenses, so she was going down to Oakwood 
where she had a cousin who was glad to have 
her live with him. Now the question was, 
[ 87 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

where the little stranger was to go, whom she 
had kept with her up till now. She wanted to 
stay over Sunday and attend the dedication, 
and on Monday she was going to lock up the 
house. 

To the schoolchildren also the approach- 
ing festivity was an opportunity for much 
loud discussion. Two parties had naturally 
formed themselves, the church and the no- 
church party. For the one side wanted to 
attend church on Organ-Sunday, as they called 
the day for short, and listen to the organ ; the 
other did not care anything about hearing the 
music, for they said they could hear the organ 
in the afternoon when they were obliged to go 
to Sunday school, and to attend church twice 
was too much. The main thing was that 
women would be sitting about everywhere with 
large baskets full of cake and unusually good 
cookies; these must be secured. The Middle 
Letters especially were against the morning 
church service. To the surprise of all, big 
Churi voted for the church-going. He had 
brought it about that the great, long-pre- 
pared battle day was fixed for Organ-Sunday, 
although many voices voted against it, and 
there were still some that did not agree with 
the arrangement, for they were sure that on 
[88 ] 


ERICK ENLISTS IN THE ARMY 

the feast-day much else was to be seen and 
heard. But Churi grew quite wild if anyone 
said a word against his plan, and they did not 
care to make him angry now, for no one could 
manage so many soldiers as he had to look 
after, and only thus could the victory be won. 
The Middle Letters had naturally joined the 
Lower Wooders against the Upper Wooders 
and so they were now a large army. The 
Upper Wooders therefore made a new effort to 
get Edi for leader and to win the battle, for 
against such a large army only a well prepared 
battle-plan and a general well versed in war 
could save them, and Edi was the only one who 
knew how to do both. 

But he remained steadfast, although it almost 
choked him, for all the brilliant examples of the 
small Greek army against the enormous hordes 
of Persians stood before him, and he had to 
swallow them all down, for he knew his father’s 
aversion to such warlike doings and then — on 
Organ-Sunday! 

Churi had ordered that his whole army 
should come together on the Friday before 
Organ-Sunday in the Middle Lot. So the 
whole crowd collected on the evening fixed, 
and there was an indescribable noise. But big 
Churi shouted the loudest and explained to 
[89 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

them the arrangements of the day: first, all 
would go to church, and during that time, he 
and his oflScers would go to find out the best 
place for camping and for the battle. 

“Ah, so, Churil” a little fellow in the crowd 
shouted, “that is why you voted for church, 
that you might do outside what you want 
to!” 

Churi cried, much vexed: “That must be 
on account of discipline ; if you do not want to 
go, then don’t, and the Upper Wooders will pay 
you for it.” This threat was effective, just as 
Churi wanted it to be. 

The whole army should not come together 
until after the organ dedication was over in the 
morning, and the midday meal which followed 
at once, was finished; and in the morning only 
Churi with his officers should march out to 
arrange all places and positions. So he had 
planned. The officers whom he had chosen 
were all his good friends, the toughest Middle 
Letters that could be found. 

About this time a year ago, he had, with the 
very same boys, broken into the Mayor’s vine- 
yard and stolen all his very best, fine Alsatian 
grapes. He intended to do this again with his 
confidential friends, for it had never been 
found out who had stolen the grapes, although 
[ 90 ] 


ERICK ENLISTS IN THE ARMY 

they had tried in all the three communities to 
find the culprits, and this had greatly encour- 
aged Churi and his allies. But he knew how 
careful the Mayor had been this year, and he 
knew very well of his daily walks and that in 
the afternoon his wife also took a walk in the 
direction of the vineyard, and in the evening 
they often took the same walk together; so that 
the culprits had not any day been sure of them. 
But on Organ-Sunday no one would be outside 
— of that Churi was convinced; therefore he 
had arranged everything in view of that, for 
although there would be an investigation, all 
the many Lower Wooders and Middle Letters 
would be in that region, and the culprits would 
never be found out from among such a large 
crowd. 

After Churi had told his army of his battle 
plans, they dispersed in all directions. A 
number of spectators had gathered around the 
warriors, every child in Middle Lot, down to 
the two-year-olds. Ahead of all was Kaetheli, 
who was always on the spot when something 
was to be seen or heard. When she left the 
meadow, she saw Erick standing near the 
hedge, where he had stood for a long time 
watching the tumultuous crowd. Kaetheli ran 
to him. “This will be such a fight as never 
[91 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

before,” she called to him with admiration. 
“Don’t you want to be in it, Erick?” 

“No,” he answered drily. 

“Why not?” 

“Because they act as I do not care to act.” 

“Not? You are a peculiar boy, you are 
always alone. Do you know where you are 
going Monday when Marianne goes away from 
here?” 

“No.” 

“You are going to be auctioned off. My 
father has said so.” 

“What is that?” asked Erick, who now 
listened more attentively to Kaetheli. 

“ Oh, there are a crowd of people in the room 
and they bid on you, and whoever bids the low- 
est gets you.” 

“That is stupid,” said Erick. 

, “Why is it stupid?” 

“Because they would get more money if 
they gave me to him who offers the most.” 

“ No, you did not understand. You are not 
going to be sold, quite the reverse; he who gets 
you also gets the money — do you understand 
now?” 

“Who gives him the money?” 

“Well, that is not a person, as you think,” 
Kaetheli explained. “Do you see, there is a 
[ 92 ] 


ERICK ENLISTS IN THE ARMY 
money box with money in it for the people 
who are poor and miserable and homeless.” 

Erick grew purple. 

“I am not going to be auctioned,” he said 
defiantly. 

“Yes, indeed, Erick, that cannot be helped. 
One has to obey before one is confirmed. If 
you do not obey, then someone just puts you 
on his shoulder and takes you to the auction 
room.” 

After Kaetheli had instructed Erick in what 
was coming to him, she bade him good-night 
and went her way. Erick stayed on the same 
spot and did not move. He had become deathly 
pale and his blue eyes flashed defiance and in- 
dignation, which had never been seen in this 
sunny face. Thus Erick stood on the same spot 
when Churi came by on his way home. 

“Have they made you angry, velvet panty? 
I never have seen you so mad,” he exclaimed 
and stopped near the hedge. 

He received no answer. 

“You join us in the fight and strike hard; 
that will relieve your feelings.” 

Erick shook his head. 

“Don’t be such a sneak, and say something. 
The fellow who has made you wrathful will no 
doubt be there, then you can get at him.” 

[93 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

“It is no boy/’ grumbled Erick. 

“So, who then, perhaps Kaetheli.^” 

“I will not go to be auctioned,” Erick burst 
out and his anger flashed as never before. 

“Well, well, is that all. That is nothing,” 
Churi thought. “You just come with us and 
you will forget the auction on the spot. Or are 
you afraid of the thrashing, you fine velvet 
pants? Do you know what? I could tell 
you something that would suit you?” 

Churi had caught an idea: he had heard 
something of some danger that was lurking 
among the Mayor’s grapes, and the others too 
knew something about it; so he reckoned that 
none of the others would go first and he him- 
self would prefer to have some other fellow first 
find out whether a trap was laid somewhere, in 
which the first one would fall, while the rest 
would be warned. For this post of inspection 
Erick fitted splendidly. 

“Well, will you?” he urged the silent Erick. 

But the latter shook his head negatively. 

“And if I help you so that you need not be 
auctioned, will you then?” 

“How can you do that?” Erick asked 
doubtingly. 

“As soon as I want to,” boasted Churi. 
“Don’t you know that my father is the ser- 
[ 94 ] 


ERICK ENLISTS IN THE ARMY 

geant here? He goes into every house along 
the whole mountain, far beyond Lower Wood, 
and he knows all the people and can place you 
where he likes. You only need to say what 
you want to do: take care of the cows, deliver 
letters, push little children along in their car- 
riages — whatever you like best.” 

Erick had never heard lying, he did not 
know what it was. He believed word for word 
what the swaggering Churi told him. He con- 
sidered a moment and then he asked: “What 
shall I have to do for that?” 

“Something which you yourself will find 
more merry than anything you ever did. You 
can go with me and the officers in the morning. 
You are the scout and always go first to see 
whether the land is clear and safe for us and 
where we can best pitch our tents and give 
battle. But one thing I have to tell you: you 
have to obey me. I am the general, and if you 
do not do at once what I tell you, you suffer for 
it. First we go through a vineyard — ” 

“One cannot give battle there, nor camp,” 
Erick interrupted. 

“That makes no difference,” Churi con- 
tinued, “you listen to what I tell you. You 
have to go through the vineyard and not make 
a bit of noise, do you hear? And not run away, 
[95 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

else — ” Churl lifted his fist threateningly. 
“You must not tell anyone where we are going, 
do you hear?” 

“I am not going,” said Erick. 

“Then go to the auction — that is the best 
thing for you; I am going now, good night.” 

But Churl nevertheless remained. The 
blood again rushed into Erick’s cheeks. He 
hesitated a moment, then he asked: “If I go 
with you, are you sure that I can get there, 
where I deliver letters?” 

“Of course you can,” Churi grumbled. 

“Then I will go.” 

“Give me your hand on it!” 

Churi held out his hand and Erick laid his in 
it. Churi kept hold of the hand. “Promise 
that you will be there under the apple tree on 
the meadow at seven o’clock Sunday morning.” 

“I promise,” said Erick. 

Churi let go of his hand, said “Good night,” 
and disappeared behind the cottage. 

The news of the day spread with wonderful 
rapidity through the schools of the three par- 
ishes. The next evening, the evening before 
Organ-Sunday , every child in Upper and Lower 
Wood, and above all, in Middle Lot, knew that 
the quiet Erick all at once belonged to the 
rowdies; that he was not only going to fight 
[ 96 ] 


ERICK ENLISTS IN THE ARMY 

with them in the Sunday battle, but that he 
was going with the worst rowdy, with Churi 
and his companions, early in the morning 
before church. 

Sally came with swollen eyes to supper, 
for Kaetheli had informed her of everything: 
how the fine Erick, whom she would so gladly 
have taken into her home and her friendship, 
had fallen into the hands of the coarse and 
wicked Churi and would be ruined and led to 
do all kinds of wicked things by the bad boy. 
All this made her tender heart ache. She had 
gone, in the afternoon, to the solitary bench 
under the apple tree and had wept until supper 
time; for, in spite of deep thinking, she had not 
been able to find a way by which she could 
snatch Erick away from the bad companions. 

Edi, too, wore a drawn face as though he 
lived on trouble and annoyance only, and his 
inner wrath goaded him to unpleasant speeches, 
for he hardly had taken his seat at table,when 
he looked across at Sally and said: “You can 
count to-morrow the blue bumps which your 
friend Erick will carry home with him, when 
he begins in the morning before church and 
serves under Churi.” 

Not much was needed to make Sally break 
out. “Yes, I know, Edi, that you would pre- 
[ 97 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

fer to begin this evening and fight through the 
whole day to-morrow/’ she cried, half sobbing, 
half defiant, looking across the table, “if Papa 
had not forbidden it.” 

Edi became flushed, for it came into his mind 
how long he had searched for an example after 
which he might take part and yet hold his own 
before his father. 

The latter looked earnestly at him and said: 
“Edi, Edi, I hope you will try not to be a Phar- 
isee. It is a bad sign for the boy Erick that he 
has joined the fighters, moreover, and that he 
has made friends with the very worst rowdy. 
But, dear Sally, you need not knock your pota- 
toes so roughly about your plate as if they 
were to blame for all the unpleasant things; eat 
them peacefully.” 

But Sally could not swallow anything more. 
When soon after Edi lay in his bed, he heaved a 
deep sigh and said: “Everything is over for 
me, but I will be glad for one thing, that to- 
morrow comes, because to-morrow is Sunday. 
You know what we get to-morrow, Ritz?” 

“Sunday school.” 

“No, I don’t mean that, I mean something 
nice.” 

“But Sunday school is nice.” 

“No, I don’t mean that either, I mean some- 
[ 98 ] 


ERICK ENLISTS IN THE ARMY 
thing which one can use very well, when no 
other pleasure conies along.” 

“An oracle,” Ritz said quickly, much con- 
tented with the delightful prospect. 

“Ritz, you do guess such ridiculous things. 
I have told you that there are no more oracles. 
There will be apple-cake, that is what I 
meant,” Edi said with a sigh, for now he saw 
again all the things for which he had wished so 
much more than apple-cake. 

“And do you know, Edi,” said Ritz, follow- 
ing his own train of thought, “to-morrow Sally 
will not be able to eat again because Erick gets 
his bumps; then we will also get her share, and 
that will make three pieces for each.” With 
these words Ritz turned happily on his side and 
went to sleep. 


[99 ] 


CHAPTER VIII 
What Happens on Organ-Sunday 

ARLY in the morning, long before 
the nine o’clock church service, large 
crowds of people were walking toward 
Upper Wood, for everybody wanted to 
hear the new organ. It was a beau- 
tiful Sunday and everyone preferred to go to 
Upper Wood to church. The women all car- 
ried a few beautiful flowers on their hymn- 
books, and when they had arrived at the open 
place before the church they stopped and 
greeted each other and stood talking in differ^ 
ent groups. Gradually the men came along 
and did the same. 

The Mayor was standing a little on one side 
with the Justice of Peace. They were in deep 
conversation in which many threats occurred, 
for the Mayor several times held up his finger 
and waved it threateningly in the air. 

Kaetheli stood close beside her father and 
pricked up her ears. Now the church bells be- 
gan to ring. Soon after the pastor’s wife and 
Sally came out of their house door, and behind 
[ 100 ] 



WHAT HAPPENS ON ORGAN-SUNDAY 

them quiet, devout Edi and Ritz with hymn- 
books under their arms. After a few steps 
they all stopped to wait for the pastor. Now 
the old wife of the sexton ran to the pastor’s 
wife; she always had to report something as 
soon as she caught sight of her. Kaetheli took 
advantage of the opportunity. Like a flash she 
was from her father’s side and whispered with 
the greatest rapidity in Sally’s ear: “ Just think 
what I know now. Last evening Neighbor 
Rudi, who belongs to Churl’s officers, told me 
that it was not on account of the fight that they 
were going away in the morning; but that they 
were going into the Mayor’s vineyard and were 
going to take his early grapes; that Churi 
had persuaded Erick to come along, because 
he wants to send him ahead through the vine- 
yard, because a trap might be set there. Of 
course Erick would be caught and the others 
could be warned and pass by, without harm. 
But imagine what the Mayor has just told 
father: he has had something placed in the nar- 
row pathway which leads through the grape 
vines which no one can see; but if anyone steps 
on it, it discharges a shot in the face and burns 
it so that no one could recognize him any more, 
for it would mar him so badly. Just think, 
Erick’s curls will be burned off and his hand- 
[101 ] 

8 


ERICK AND SALLY 
some face will be so marred that we shall not 
know him.” 

Sally had become as white as snow from 
fright. ‘‘Come quickly, Kaetheli,” she said 
urgently, “we will run after Erick and tell him 
everything, come!” 

“It is much too late, why, what do you 
think,” Kaetheli said, “they started early this 
morning. Erick is already burned.” 

Now the pastor came out. The mother 
turned and took Sally’s hand, who tried to stay 
behind. K&,etheli went toward the church, 
and Sally knew that she too had to go in; but 
she could hardly walk from fear and anguish, 
and as she sat on her bench within, she saw 
and heard nothing of the whole organ festivi- 
ties, for she only saw the disfigured Erick be- 
fore her, how he was sitting in the vineyard and 
moaning, and her tears fell so plentifully that 
she could no longer look up. 

Churi and his officers had assembled at the 
set time. Erick also had kept his word and 
was there. Although the companions had 
started early, they met single churchgoers on 
their way to Upper Wood, for these people 
wanted to look around on their way to church, 
to see how things were in the fields and gardens, 
and so they had set off in good time. 

[ 102 ] 


WHAT HAPPENS ON ORGAN-SUNDAY 

Now Churi had commanded his officers that 
they must each bring a basket, for there was 
no time to eat the grapes in the vineyard; they 
must cut them quickly and throw them into 
their baskets, then they would go into the 
woods, to a safe place, and eat them in peace. 
But armed with baskets the officers appeared 
somewhat suspicious; Churi himself thought 
so and he now ordered, when they arrived at 
Upper Wood, that his officers should hide the 
baskets behind a barn, until all the church- 
goers had entered the church and the roads 
were safe. 

Erick had already asked twice what the 
baskets were needed for on an inspection 
march, but he had received no answer. As 
now the warriors sat hidden behind the heap of 
straw and had time for questions and answers, 
Erick asked again: “What are you going to 
put in the baskets?” 

“Grapes, if you insist on knowing!” Churi 
shouted at him, “and you too will find them 
good when you eat them.” 

After the bells had stopped ringing and all 
was quiet round about, Churi commanded 
them to start. “But you will be very quiet 
when you pass the church, do you hear?” he 
ordered; “for the doors are still open.” 

[ 103 : 


ERICK AND SALLY 

Full, bright organ tones came through the 
opened doors toward the boys when they 
silently approached the church, and now, sud- 
denly, the whole congregation joined with 
the tones of the organ and sang in loud, full 
chorus : 

“How shall I then receive Thee? 

And how shall I then meet Thee? 

Oh, Thou, the world’s desire 
Who set’st my heart on fire!” 

Like lightning Erick was away out of the midst 
of his companions to the church-door and into 
the church. 

Churi grew pale from fright; he believed 
nothing less than that Erick had rushed into 
the church to betray publicly to the whole con- 
gregation the intended grape-theft. Instantly 
he turned around and ran away like a madman, 
for he firmly believed that half the congrega- 
tion was on his heels, since he heard a crowd 
running after him. But the runners were his 
companions, who followed him in greatest 
haste, for since they saw the brave Churi run 
like fire, they thought that there must be great 
danger, and they rushed with always longer 
and longer leaps after him. 

Erick had run into the midst of a crowd of 
[ 104 ] 


WHAT HAPPENS ON ORGAN-SUNDAY 
people, who all stood in the passage of the 
church because there were no more seats on 
the benches, so full was the church. Now the 
hymn, accompanied by the organ, rushed like 
a big, full stream on through the church: 

“Thy Zion scatters palms 
And greening twigs for Thee, 

But I in glorious psalms 
Will lift my soul to Thee! 

My heart be overflowing 
In constant love and praise 
In service will be growing. 

Will Thy dear name then grace.” 

In breathless attention Erick stood there, for 
it was his mother’s song! He was trembling 
in every limb and large tears ran down his 
cheeks. A woman who sat near him noticed 
the trembling little fellow; she drew him com- 
passionately close to her and made a little room 
for him, so that he could sit down. 

The singing had stopped and the pastor 
began to preach. During the sermon Erick 
recovered a little from the strong emotion 
which had quite overpowered him when he 
suddenly heard in such powerful tones his lost 
song again. 


[105 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

He now looked round and saw that he was 
firmly wedged in and could not move, for two 
more women had forced themselves between 
the sitters, and the whole passage the full 
length of the church was densely thronged with 
people. So Erick sat, quiet as a mouse, and 
did not stir until the sermon and prayer were 
at an end. Then once more the full tones of 
the organ sounded and the congregation rose 
and sang: 

‘T lay in heaviest fetters. 

Thou com’st and set’st me free; 

I stood in shame and sorrow. 

Thou callest me to Thee; 

And lift’st me up to honor 
And giv’st me heavenly joys 
Which cannot be diminished 
By earthly scorn and noise.” 

His mother had sung that at the very last. 
Erick saw her again before him, as she had sat 
the last evening at the piano and had spoken 
to him with words so full of love; and then, in 
the morning, she had lain there so still and pale. 
He laid his head on the arm of the bench and 
sobbed as if his heart would break. The peo- 
ple passed by him, and here and there one 
woman said to another : “The poor little fellow, 
[106 ] 


WHAT HAPPENS ON ORGAN-SUNDAY 

he has no one on this earth,” and then they 
went out. 

The pastor in the pulpit had seen Erick rush 
into church. He now looked again in that 
direction, and noticed the little chap, how he sat 
there on the empty bench, so forsaken, his head 
resting on his arm. The pastor now walked 
behind the last of the congregation toward the 
bench. He stepped into the pew and put his 
hand on Erick’s shoulder and asked kindly: 
‘‘Why are you weeping so hard, my boy?” 

“Because — because — because they sang 
Mother’s song,” sobbed Erick. 

“What is your name?” the pastor asked 
again. 

“Erick Dorn,” was the answer. 

Now the pastor knew what to do. He took 
the boy’s hand in his fatherly hand, pulled him 
down from the high bench and said: “Come 
with me, my boy!” 

At the parsonage the three children stood 
waiting for the father’s return, as they did 
every Sunday. Sally had not said a word since 
they had left church; now she came close to her 
mother and said, quite excited: “Please, 
please. Mamma, may I go now at once to 
Kaetheli? I have to talk over something with 
her, really I must.” 


[ 107 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

Sally had made up her mind to go out into 
the vineyards to look for Erick, but she did not 
know the way, so Kaetheli was to go with her. 
But the mother opposed Sally’s urging and 
said: “You know, dear, that we have dinner 
at once, and father does not allow such running 
away on Sunday. There he comes now. Who 
is the little boy whose hand he is holding?” 

Sally uttered a loud shout of joy and tore 
away. “Oh, Erick! you are not burnt!” she 
cried, beside herself with joy, when she now 
saw Erick before her with his abundant curls 
and bright eyes. 

“Of course not,” said Erick, politely lifting 
his little cap and offering his hand to her, a 
little surprised, for he did not know when he 
could have burned himself. Quickly she took 
his hand and so the three met the surprised 
mother who, however, at the sight of Erick, 
guessed at once who the fine boy in the velvet 
jacket was. She greeted him lovingly and 
stroked his tear-stained eyes and fiushed 
cheeks. 

Sally would have liked to ask at once how all 
had happened, and would have urged him to 
tell everything; but when she saw how he must 
have wept, she shrank from enquiring and held 
his hand quietly. Edi and Ritz also noticed 
[ 108 ] 


WHAT HAPPENS ON ORGAN-SUNDAY 

at once the traces of tears and greeted him 
quite calmly. 

The pastor left his family to go to his room 
and the mother took his place and conducted 
Erick, whom Sally on the other side held firmly 
by the hand, up the stairs; Ritz and Edi fol- 
lowed. When Xizebeth, who was standing in 
the kitchen door, saw the procession come and 
noticed that the mother held the little stranger 
so tenderly by his hand, as though he were her 
own small Ritz, then ’Lizebeth at once shut 
the kitchen door, and grumbled: “There is 
something wrong about this!” 

Soon after, the whole family sat around the 
noonday table, and if Sally could not eat yes- 
terday from sorrow, today she could not swal- 
low anything from pure joy, not even the apple 
cake, which surprised Ritz very much. But 
he was glad that the sad Erick also got 
some, for he thought that that must comfort 
him. 

In the evening of this Sunday, Erick sat in 
the midst of the pastor’s family around the 
four-cornered sitting-room table, as snugly and 
familiarly as if he long since belonged there. 
He had been treated, the whole afternoon, with 
such kindness by all, that his whole heart, 
which had been accustomed to a mother’s great 
[ 109 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

love, opened, and he felt more happy than he 
had in all the sad days since he had had to miss 
this love. Sally did not know how she could 
do enough to give him pleasure. Now she had 
brought the most beautiful picture book that 
she owned, and Erick looked with her at the 
pictures, which she eagerly explained to him; 
all the time beaming with joy that everything, 
she had believed lost, had come to her; that 
Erick was in the midst of them at home like a 
near friend, and was to stay over the night, 
for the father had arranged that at once. 

Edi sat over his history book and Ritz had a 
book of his own before him, but looked over it 
at Sally and listened to her explanation. Now 
Edi lifted his head — ^he must have come upon 
something very particular. 

“Papa,” he said, “now I know for certain 
what I want to be: a sea-captain. Then I can 
sail around the world, for sometime I must see 
all the lands where all these things have 
happened.” 

“So, I thought you wanted to be a professor 
of history,” remarked the father, not much dis- 
turbed by this piece of news. 

“I want to be that, too,” said Ritz, “I, too, 
want to sail in ships.” 

“No, you see, Ritz, two brothers must not 

[ no ] 


WHAT HAPPENS ON ORGAN-SUNDAY 

be the same thing, else they get in each other’s 
way,” instructed Edi. 

‘‘Then I will be a sea-robber, they too sail in 
ships,” Ritz comforted himself. 

“We will not hope. anything of the kind,” 
said the father behind his church paper. 

“And do you remember, Ritz, what I once 
told you about Julius Caesar.^” Edi reminded 
him. “If I were to catch you like that, then I 
should be obliged to have you killed.” 

“No, I do not want that! But what can 
one be with ships?” Ritz asked plaintively, for 
if Edi expressed a thought, then it usually re- 
mained firmly in Ritz’s head. 

“One can be also something very good with- 
out ships, my dear Ritz,” the mother said com- 
fortingly, “and that is much safer; then one 
stays on firm land, and I should advise you to 
stay. And what does our Erick want to be? 
Has he too thought of that?” 

“I must become an honorable man,” an- 
swered Erick at once. 

“That is no calling,” instructed Edi. 

But the father put down his book and said, 
nodding at the boy: “That is right, Erick, go 
toward that goal: first, and above all, an honor- 
able man; after that, every calling is all right.” 

Now the mother rose, for it was time to go to 
[ 111 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

bed. Edi and Ritz took Erick between them 
and thus marched ahead of the mother to con- 
duct him to his little room which was beside 
their bedroom, so that the door between could 
be left open, with the advantage that Erick 
also could be drawn into the nightly conversa- 
tion. Both Edi and Ritz were delighted with 
that. 

So the Organ-Sunday, which had begun so 
hostilely, ended quite peacefully. 


[ 112 ] 


CHAPTER IX 
A Secret that is Kept 

f>X(^|HEN on the next morning the pastor’s 
IXuJl family was at breakfast, the pastor 
arranged that Erick should not go 
with the other three to school, since 
he belonged to the school in Lower 
Wood and it was now too far to go there. 
When the other three had gone, then Erick 
should come to him in his study. So it was 
decided, and when Erick came into the study 
the pastor pointed to a seat and said: ‘‘Now 
sit down in front of me” — ^for he himself sat 
on the large sofa — “look into my eyes, and 
tell me everything from the beginning and 
exactly what happened yesterday before you 
came into church, also what you intended to 
do, for I have heard all kinds of things.” 

Erick looked with his large, bright blue eyes 
straight into the pastor’s, and told everything 
from the beginning: how he was going to be 
auctioned and did not want to be, what Churi 
had promised him, how he then had gone 
with them, also how the others had brought 
[ 113 ] 



ERICK AND SALLY 

large baskets to put grapes in, but he did not 
know where they were to get the grapes. The 
pastor, however, now knew everything, for 
Sally had reported how the Mayor was expect- 
ing his grape-thieves again and how he was 
going to receive them. It was now quite plain, 
as one had always suspected, that the same 
crowd, the Middle Letters, under Churi’s lead, 
had plundered the vineyard. 

“Erick,” said the pastor earnestly, “y^^ 
want to be an honorable man and you mean it 
seriously so far as you understand the word, I 
have seen that; but that is not the way which 
will lead you there. See, you can understand, 
that you have made friends with a crowd of 
boys who are on no good road; for, to run about 
wild on Sunday, when the bells call to church, 
and to be obliged to hide behind barns from 
nice people, — you did not learn that from your 
mother, did you, Erick.^” 

Erick had to lower his open eyes and an- 
swered very low : “ No . ” 

“But worse things turn up if one goes with 
bad boys,” the pastor continued. “Through 
them, one often comes where one never wanted 
to come. See, if you had not been saved from 
it through your mother’s song which you 
heard, you would have been caught with the 
[114 ] 


A SECRET THAT IS KEPT 

others in the vineyard as a thief, and punished 
as such. Well, Erick, if your mother should 
have had to hear that!” 

Erick had grown dark red in the face. He 
was silent for some time, visibly from fear and 
perplexity, then he asked timidly: “Can I no 
longer grow to be an honorable man.^^” 

“Yes, indeed, Erick,” said the pastor now 
kindly, “that you can. You know now on 
what road one cannot go; think of that and 
keep yourself far from bad companions. And 
now I will tell you how you can become a man 
of honor. Do you remember how the verse in 
your mother’s song goes, which begins: 

‘Thy Zion scatters palms 
And greening twigs for Thee, 

But I in glorious psalms 
Will lift my soul to Thee!’” 

In an instant Erick continued: 

“‘My heart be overflowing 
In constant love and praise. 

In service will be growing. 

Will Thy dear name then grace. 

“Erick, you must never forget these words. 
If you bring all your deeds before the dear God 
and look to it before Him, whether you ‘Will 
[115 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

grace His dear name’ as well as you know, then 
you will become a genuinely honorable man. 
Will you think on it?” 

“Yes, I will,” Erick promised gladly, as 
now he looked up again to the pastor freely and 
openly. 

“Then,” the latter said after a while, “there 
is still something else, Erick. Have you 
known your father?” 

“No.” 

“Do you know if he is still alive, where he 
is?” 

“Mother told me father had gone to Amer- 
ica, to make a large fortune for himself and for 
us; but he has not yet returned.” 

“Do you know other relatives, sisters or 
brothers of your mother, or some close 
friends?” 

“No.” 

“Don’t you know of anyone to whom one 
could turn, who would look after you?” 

“No, no,” said Erick, quite anxiously. 

But the pastor put his hand very kindly on 
Erick’s head and said: “You must not be 
afraid, my boy, all will come out all right. 
You may go now.” 

Erick rose; he hesitated for a moment, then 
he asked somewhat falteringly: “Must I go 
[ 116 ] 


A SECRET THAT IS KEPT 

now directly to be auctioned? I am afraid 
Marianne has gone by now.” 

“No, no,” the pastor answered quickly, 
“you will not go there at all, not at all. Now 
you go down to Mamma, she will keep you for 
the present.” 

Erick’s eyes shone for joy. He had thought 
up till now that he would be sent to the auc- 
tion, away from the happy life in the parson- 
age, but now this threatening bugbear was 
done away with forever. When Erick entered 
the sitting-room he found old Marianne sitting 
there. They had sent word, the evening be- 
fore, that Erick would not come back for the 
night, but Marianne could not have gone away 
without taking leave of him. With many tears 
she bade him good-bye, and Erick too felt 
sorry that good old Marianne was going away; 
but since he might stay in the parsonage, it was 
indeed a different thing for him than if he had 
had to remain behind alone. 

The weeping Marianne had hardly left the 
door, when the stately Mayor came in and 
went with firm steps toward the pastor’s study. 
Early in the morning, when he was going into 
the vineyard, he had met the Justice of Peace, 
and heard from him all the happenings of yes- 
terday, how Erick had spoiled the game for the 
[ 117 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

grape-thieves, and how they, the would-be 
thieves, had run far beyond the next two vil- 
lages before they even became aware that it 
was only their allies who were chasing them. 
Kaetheli had learned all that, and had reported 
it to her father. The Mayor was quite satis- 
fied with the outcome of the affair, and since 
he looked on Erick as the saver of his grapes, 
he now came to the pastor to talk over what 
could be done for the poor orphan. 

The gentlemen held a long consultation, for 
both were anxious to find the most suitable 
plan for the boy; but they could not come 
to an agreement. The Mayor proposed that 
since the little fellow did not appear to be very 
strong, it would be best to apprentice him to 
an easy trade. He thought it would be best to 
put him to board at the tailor’s, then he would 
grow into the trade without much trouble, and 
would have nice companions in the tailor’s own 
boys; they were suited to each other, for the 
tailor’s sons were also dressed as cleanly and 
carefully as he was. But the pastor had other 
thoughts ; he had a good institute in his mind, 
where Erick could be cared for at once and later 
be educated for a teacher. This also suited 
the Mayor, and he took leave with the assur- 
ance that he would make Erick a nice little 
[ 118 ] 


A SECRET THAT IS KEPT 

gift, for the little fellow had shown him a 
greater kindness than he could know, which 
the pastor verified. 

When later the pastor told his wife of their 
transaction, she did not quite agree with it; she 
thought that she might keep the orphaned 
Erick for a while with her; in fact she should 
prefer to keep him altogether, for she had 
already taken this loving, trusting boy deep 
into her heart. But the pastor convinced her 
that the “keeping altogether” could not be 
done, since there were nearer obligations to all 
kinds of relatives, so that one could not give 
the little stranger preference in such a way. 
But he gladly granted the wish of his wife to 
keep Erick at least a few weeks in their home; 
for, he said, one could postpone his entrance 
into the institute until the beginning of the 
new year. 

When the children were told of the decision 
there was great rejoicing, for Edi had put into 
Ritz’s head a large number of splendid under- 
takings, which could be carried out only by 
three people, and Sally knew of nothing in the 
whole world that could have given her greater 
joy than that now she could be with the new 
friend from day to day; for he was in every way 
what she could wish, and in many ways he was 
[ 119 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
much nicer than she could have imagined from 
the manners of her former friends. 

Erick had such a happy, refined, thought- 
ful disposition, that it seemed to Sally as if she 
lived in continuous sunshine when she was with 
him. The aunt also agreed with the decision 
to keep the boy in the parsonage, although at 
first she had seen in it a disturbance in the 
order of the household, since the increasing of 
the number would mean that in the evening it 
would take even longer to get to a settlement. 
But when she noticed that Erick, on the first 
hint, rose at once and did what was desired, 
then her fears turned to hopes that one might 
impress the others a little with this ever-ready 
boy, which impressed her very favorably. 
’Lizebeth alone continued her dislike of the 
new-comer, and whenever she met him in the 
house she measured him with her eyes from his 
head to as far as the velvet reached. 

Erick soon felt quite at home in the parson- 
age. He now went with the three children to 
the same school, shared Edi’s historical interest 
as long as the latter entertained him with it, 
which was the case on every walk to school, 
and as often as possible besides, for Edi found 
large gaps in the historical knowledge of his 
new friend and felt himself called upon to fill 
[ 120 ] 


A SECRET THAT IS KEPT 
them in. Erick was a good listener and often 
put questions which drove Edi to new, deep 
studies and which excited him so much that he 
had almost no other thoughts but Rome and 
Carthage. 

With good-natured Ritz, Erick was also on 
good terms. The little fellow ran after him 
wherever he went, and looked delighted when 
he saw him from afar; then he rushed at him 
and was always sure of a pleasant reception 
and jocular conversation, for Erick was always 
friendly, talkative and in good humor, and 
never buried in history books which often 
made Edi unhappy. So Ritz spent all the 
time out of school either with Erick, or seeking 
him, which however sometimes cost him a good 
deal of time, for the very nearest friends, after 
all, were Erick and Sally. The two could 
not be separated. There was a great similar- 
ity in their temperaments, for what the one 
wanted the other liked also, and what the one 
did not like, did not please the other, and both 
liked nothing better than to go together up in- 
to the woods, where under the old fir-tree was 
the small bench on which they could sit and tell 
each other all they knew; or to go down to 
the foaming Woodbach and there, sitting on 
the stones near the bank, watch the tossing 
C 121 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

waves rush down. They never seemed to lack 
topics of conversation. Erick told about his 
mother, and how they had lived together, and 
of her beautiful singing; and Sally never grew 
weary of hearing again and again the same 
stories, and would keep on asking questions. 

So they sat on their bench under the tree on 
the sunny Sunday afternoon in the first week 
in October, and Sally had just begun her ques- 
tions. This time she wanted to know why the 
mother had sent Erick to Lower Wood to 
school and not to Upper Wood, where all good 
people from Middle Lot came — Kaetheli, for 
example. Then Erick told her that his mother 
had asked Marianne about the schools, and 
after Marianne had explained everything to 
her, and that fewer children went to Lower 
Wood and mostly children who were not so 
well-known, then his mother had at once de- 
cided that he should go there. “For you see, 
Sally, we were obliged to be alone and hide 
ourselves until I had become an honorable 
man.” 

“But why? I do not understand it at all,” 
Sally said somewhat impatiently. “And then 
afterwards when you had become an honorable 
man, what did you want to do, if you did not 
know anyone?” 


[ 122 : 


A SECRET THAT IS KEPT 

‘‘I should very much like to tell it to you, 
Sally,” Erick answered very seriously, “but 
you would have to promise me that you would 
tell it to no human being; never, not if it 
should take many, many years.” 

“Yes, yes, I will surely promise that,” 
Sally said quickly, for she was very anxious to 
hear the secret. 

“No, Sally, you must consider it well,” 
said Erick, and held his hands behind his back, 
to let her have time, “then if you have decided 
that you will tell no human being one single 
word, then you must promise it to me with a 
firm handshake.” 

Sally had fully decided. “Just give me 
your hand, Erick,” she urged. “So, I promise 
you that I will tell to no one a single word of 
that which you want to tell me.” 

Now Erick felt safe. “You see, Sally,” he 
began, “in Denmark there is a very large, 
beautiful estate, with a beautiful lawn before 
the house to which one can go directly through 
large doors out of the halls, and in the middle 
of the lawn are the beautiful fiower-beds just 
filled with roses; and on the other side of the 
house one goes across to the large, old oaks, 
where the horses graze — ^for there are many 
beautiful horses. And on the left side of the 

[ ns : 


ERICK AND SALLY 

house one comes directly into the small forest; 
there is a pond quite surrounded by dense 
trees, and a small bench stands above and 
from there one descends three steps to the little 
boat that has two oars, and my mother liked 
best to sit there and row about the pond. For, 
you see, my mother lived there when she was a 
child, and also later when she was grown up. 
And there below, where the lawn stops, begin 
the large stables where the horses are when they 
are not grazing; and my mother had her own 
little white horse. She rode about on that with 
grandfather or with old John. Oh, that was 
so beautiful! But 'once Mother was diso- 
bedient to grandfather, for she wanted to go 
far away with my father, and grandfather 
would not have it; but she went, and then she 
was not allowed to come back, and everything 
was over.” 

Sally had listened with breathless attention. 
Now she burst out: “Dear, dear, what a pity! 
That is exactly like Adam and Eve in Paradise ! 
But where did your mother go to? And who 
is now on that beautiful estate?” 

“Mother went far away to Paris, then 
to many other places, and at last we came to 
Middle Lot. My grandfather still lives on the 
estate.” 


[ 124 ] 


A SECRET THAT IS KEPT 
“Oh, Erick, we will write a letter at once to 
your grandfather and ask him whether you 
may now come home again?” 

“Oh, no, no! I dare not do that,” opposed 
Erick. “ I must not go to my grandfather until 
I have become an honorable man, so that I 
may say to him: ‘I will not bring shame on 
your name. Grandfather, but Mother would 
like to make up through me for what you have 
suffered through her!’ I have promised that 
to my mother!” 

“Oh, what a pity, what a pity!” lamented 
Sally, “you may never go to the beautiful 
estate until you are a man; that will be a ter- 
rible long time. And then you have to go 
away in the winter to quite strange people, to 
an institute. Oh, if you only could go to the 
beautif ul estate, to Grandfather ! Can it not be 
brought about, Erick ? Can no one help you ? ’ ’ 
“No, that is quite impossible,” said Erick, 
thoroughly convinced. “But now, since you 
know all, I will tell you a good deal more about 
the estate, for I know much more, and Mother 
and I have talked so often about it,” so Erick 
told more and more until they reached home, 
where both of them were much distracted, for 
both were wandering in thought about the beau- 
tiful estate far away. The mother looked sev- 
[ 125 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

eral times now at the one, then at the other, 
for nothing unusual in her children ever es- 
caped her motherly eye; but she said nothing. 
When later she had prayed with the children, 
and was now standing in her own bedroom, she 
heard how Sally, in her little bedroom beside 
hers, was praying loud and earnestly to God. 

The mother wondered what could so occupy 
the thoughts of her little girl, who was usually 
so open and communicative. What had hap- 
pened this evening, and what was urging her 
to such a pleading prayer, and why had she 
not said a word about it? Could the child 
have a secret trouble? She softly opened the 
door a little, and now heard how Sally several 
times in succession fervently prayed : “ Oh, dear 
God, please bring it about that Erick may come 
to his grandfather on the beautiful estate.” 

Now the mother entered Sally’s room. 
“My dear child,” she said, “for what did you 
pray just now to the dear God? Will you 
explain it to me?” 

But Sally made such an uproar that the 
mother stopped with surprise. “You did not 
hear it. Mother? I hope you have not under- 
stood it. Mother. Have you? You must not 
know it. Mother, no one must know it. It is 
a great secret.” 


[ 126 ] 


A SECRET THAT IS KEPT 

“But, dear child, do be quiet and listen to 
me,” said the mother kindly. “I heard that 
you prayed to the dear God for something for 
Erick. Perhaps we, too, could do something 
for him. Tell me what you know, for it may 
lead to something good for him.” 

“No, no,” cried Sally in the greatest excite- 
ment, “I will say nothing, I have promised 
him, and I do not know anything else than for 
what I have prayed.” And Sally threw her- 
self on her pillow and began to sob. 

Now the mother ordered her to be quiet and 
let the thing rest. She would not ask her any 
more, nor speak of it. Sally should do as she 
felt, and surrender everything to the dear God. 
But the mother put two things together in her 
mind. When Marianne had come to take leave, 
she had questioned her about Erick’s mother 
and the latter’s condition; also whether Mari- 
anne knew her maiden name. But Marianne 
did not know much, only once she had seen a 
strange name, but had not been able to read it. 
It was when Erick, at one time, had taken 
the cover from his mother’s little Bible; then 
she saw a name written with golden letters. 
Erick must have the little Bible. The lady 
had seen the little black book in Erick’s box 
and had taken off the close-fitting cover and 
[ 127 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

had found written in fine gold letters the name, 
‘ ‘ Hilda von V estentrop ’ ’ . She at once assumed 
that this must be the maiden name of Erick’s 
mother; but she knew nothing further. 

Now she had learned through Sally’s prayer 
that Denmark had been her native land, and 
that a father was living there. All this she 
told to her husband the same evening, and 
proposed that he should write at once to this 
gentleman in Denmark. 

The pastor leaned far back in his armchair 
and stared at his wife with astonishment. 
“Dear wife,” he said at last, “do you really 
believe that I could send a letter addressed 
‘von Vestentrop, Denmark’? This address is 
no doubt enough for the dear God, but not for 
short-sighted human beings.” 

But the wife did not give in. She reminded 
her husband that he knew their countryman, 
the pastor of the French church in Copen- 
hagen, and that he perhaps could help him 
onto the track of von Vestentrop; the latter 
must be the owner of an estate and such a 
gentleman could be found. And the wife 
spoke so long and so impressively to her hus- 
band that he finally sat down that very evening 
and wrote two letters. The one he addressed 
“To Mr. von Vestentrop in Denmark”. 

[128 ] 


A SECRET THAT IS KEPT 
This one he enclosed in the second and addressed 
that to his acquaintance, the pastor of the 
French church in Copenhagen. Then he laid 
the heavy letter on his writing-table so that 
early to-morrow morning ’Lizebeth would find 
it and carry it to the post office. 


C 129 ] 


CHAPTER X 
Surprising Things Happen 

EEKS had passed by since Erick had 
become an inhabitant of the parson- 
age, but ’Lizebeth had not changed her 
mind. Just now she was standing in 
the kitchen-door, when Erick came 
rimning up the steps, and hastily asked: 
“Where are Ritz and Edi?” 

’Lizebeth measured him with a long look 
and said: “I should have thought that a boy 
in velvet would utter the names in a strange 
house more politely, and that he might say, 
‘Where are Eduardi and Moritzli?”’ 

Much frightened, Erick looked up to ’Liz- 
ebeth. “I did not know that I ought to talk 
so in the parsonage; I have never done it and I 
am sorry for it; now I will always remember 
to say it,” he promised assuringly. 

Now that did not suit ’Lizebeth. She had 
believed that he would answer, “That is none 
of your business.” For that remark she had 
prepared a fitting answer. And now he an- 
swered her so nicely that she was caught, but if 
[ 130 ] 




SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

he really was going to carry out his promise, 
then the lady of the house might find out how 
she had schoolmastered him and that might 
draw upon her some unpleasantness, for she 
knew how tenderly the former treated the boy 
Erick. She therefore changed her tactics and 
said: ‘‘Well, you see, I always say the names 
in the proper way; it is differentVith you, you 
are their comrade, and as far as I am concerned, 
you can call them as you like.” 

“I should like to asksomethingelse,if Imay,” 
said Erick, and politely waited for permission. 

’Lizebeth liked this mannerly way very well 
and said encouragingly: “Yes, indeed, ask on, 
as much as you like.” 

“I wanted to ask whether I may say ‘’Liz- 
ebeth’ like the others, or whether I ought to 
say ‘Mistress ’Lizebeth’.” 

Now Erick had won over ’Lizebeth’s whole 
heart for the reason that he wanted to know 
what title she ought to have by rights, and 
that showed her what a fine boy he was. She 
patted his shoulder protectingly, and his curly 
hair, and said: “You just call me ‘Xizebeth’, 
and if you want to ask anything, then come 
into the kitchen, and I will tell you everything 
you want to know and — wait a moment!” 
With these words she turned round and chased 
[131 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

about the kitchen, then she came to him with 
two splendid, bright red apples in her hand. 

“Oh, what beautiful apples! Thank you 
ever so much, ’Lizebeth!” he cried delightedly, 
and now ran out. 

’Lizebeth looked after him with such pride 
as if she were his grandmother, and said to her- 
self: “Let anyone come now and show me 
three finer little boys in the whole world than 
our three are.” With this challenge, and the 
proud consciousness that no one could accept 
it, she turned to her pans and kettles. 

So Erick had won over everyone, but there 
was still one who looked at him from the corner 
of his eyes and always with a look of wrath, for 
a few days after Organ-Sunday, the Mayor had 
ordered that Churi should appear before him, 
and the bold Churi could hardly keep on his 
feet when he had to appear before the judicial 
tribunal, for he expected to receive the well- 
earned punishment from the strong hand of the 
Mayor. But the latter only pinched his ear a 
little and said: “Churi, Churi! this time you 
get off better than you deserve, for I know now 
who got the grapes last year, and I also know 
who wanted to get them again a few days ago. 
If from now on, even one single little bunch is 
missing, I shall hold you responsible, and you 
C 132 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

will be surprised at what will happen to you, 
think of that! Now go.” 

Churi did not need to be told that twice; he 
was gone as if his life was at stake; but from 
that time on he thought of revenge on Erick, 
and when he met him, he shook his fist at him 
and said: “You wait! I will get you some- 
time.” But so far he had never met Erick 
alone, and had never been able to do him 
the slightest harm. This secretly embittered 
Churi still more. 

Now winter had set in. Upper Wood lay 
deeply buried in snow, and everyone was busy 
thinking of Christmas and New Year. In these 
days the pastor gave a gentle hint to his wife, 
that the time for Erick’s change to the insti- 
tute, for which the Mayor also had offered his 
help, was fast approaching. But the lady 
hardly let him finish his sentence for excite- 
ment, and answered at once: “How can you 
even think of such a thing! In the first place; 
we must wait for the answer from Denmark, 
before we do anything; and secondly, the whole 
Christmas joy would be spoiled completely for 
the children, through such news; thirdly, we 
ourselves, you and I, could not separate our- 
selves so suddenly and unprepared from a child 
who is as dear to us as one of our own — ” 
[ 133 ] 


10 


ERICK AND SALLY 

“Fourthly, ’Lizebeth will give notice at 
once,” continued the pastor, “for she now is 
the worst of all, from all that I see. One thing 
is sure, dear wife, if the little fellow was not so 
guileless and had not such an exceptionally 
good disposition, you women would have 
ruined him so that he never could get straight- 
ened again, for you, one and all, spoil him quite 
terribly.” 

“It is just this harmless and exceptionally 
well-disposed character of the child which wins 
all hearts, so that one cannot help treating him 
with peculiar love. No talk of sending Erick 
away before Easter can be considered, and 
much can happen before then, my dear 
husband.” 

“Oh, yes,” the latter agreed, “only do not 
look for an answer from Denmark, for it would 
be in vain. The guilelessness in that address 
went a little too far.” 

But the pastor’s wife was contented that 
another respite had been granted, and she 
hoped on. 

The winter passed, Easter was approaching, 
but no answer came. This time the pastor’s 
wife got ahead of her husband. When shortly 
before Easter a belated April frost set in, she 
explained to him that new winter wraps had to 
[134 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

be made for all the children, and before one 
could think of sending Erick away, summer 
clothing had to be prepared for him; his good 
velvet suit looked, indeed, still very fine, and 
would last some time yet, but her husband 
knew it was his only suit, and for mid-summer 
another must absolutely be procured for him, 
and for that, time and leisure were needed. 

The pastor gave his consent to the postpone- 
ment without opposition. In his heart he was 
heartily glad for the good excuse; for he, like 
all the rest, had learned to love Erick so much 
that the thought of his departure was very 
painful to him. 

His wife was contented again and thought 
in her heart: “Who knows what may happen 
before summer.” 

But something did happen which seemed to 
destroy with one blow all her hopes. The 
warm June had come and on the sunny hill- 
sides around Upper Wood the strawberries, 
which grew there in plenty, were beginning to 
give out most delightful fragrance, and to turn 
red. That was a glorious time for all children 
round about. The children of the parsonage, 
too, undertook daily strawberry-expeditions 
and every evening belated they returned home. 
The order-devoted aunt, who, after a winter’s 
[135 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

absence, had returned with the summer to the 
parsonage, did not leave any remedy untried to 
restore at least the usual condition of things. 

Below near the Woodbach the berries grew 
largest and most plentifully. But to go there 
they had to wait till Saturday afternoon, when 
they had no school, for it was too far to take 
the walk after afternoon school. When Sat- 
urday came and the sun was shining brightly 
in the sky, then the whole company in joyous 
mood left the parsonage, Sally and Erick ahead, 
Ritz and Edi following. All were armed with 
baskets, for to-day, so they had decided. 
Mother was to receive a great quantity of straw- 
berries instead of their eating all on the spot as 
usually happened. Having arrived on the hill- 
side over the Woodbach, the best spots were 
sought; if one was found which was plentifully 
sprinkled over with strawberries, then the 
whole company was called together and the 
place cleared, and afterwards each went out 
again for new discoveries. 

.Erick was a good climber; without any 
trouble he swung himself down over the steep- 
est hillsides, and jumped up the high rocks like 
a squirrel. Sally saw him, how he swung him- 
self down a rock where he had espied on the 
lowest end a spot that shone bright red in the 
[136 ] 



Churl . . . unexpectedly gave him such a severe push that Erick 
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SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 
sun, as if covered with rubies. Were they ber- 
ries or flowers which were growing there so 
beautifully? Erick must see them nearer. 
Sally shouted after him: “Call us if you 
find something, but be careful, it is steep 
there.” 

Erick answered with a yodel and disappeared. 
Having arrived below, he met the Middle Pot- 
ters, who were bending in groups here and 
there, or lying on the ground, eating the berries 
which they picked. Erick could not find the 
red spot which he had seen from above; but 
not far away from him stood Ghuri, who had 
seen him coming down. Churi called to 
him: 

“Come here, velvet pants, here are berries 
such as you have never seen.” 

Erick went quite calmly to him and when he 
now had stepped quite close to Churi, the 
latter unexpectedly gave him such a severe 
push that Erick rolled down the rest of the 
mountain side and right into the gray waves 
of the Woodbach. 

When Churi saw that, he was frightened. 
For a moment he stared at the gray waves; but 
Erick had disappeared, not a speck of him 
could be seen. Then Churi softly turned round 
and ran away as quickly as he could, without 
[ 137 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

looking round, for his conscience bit him and 
drove him along, and he dared not look anyone 
in the face for fear that someone could read 
there what he had done. The other Middle 
Letters had not paid attention to what was 
going on. Perhaps once in a while one of the 
crowd would ask, “What has become of Churi 
all of a sudden?” and another would answer, 
“He can go, wherever he likes,” and they 
would turn again to their berries and think no 
more of him. 

Meanwhile Sally had remained standing in 
the same spot and had waited for Erick’s call. 
When it did not come, she began to call, but 
received no answer. She now called to Edi, 
and he came running with Ritz, and all three 
called together for Erick, but in vain. The 
sun had long since set, and it was beginning to 
grow dark. All children, even the Middle 
Letters, went past them on their homeward 
way, and they were always the very last. 
“Show me once more, and be quite sure, the 
very spot where he began to climb down,” said 
Edi, “I will go down, in the same path.” 

Sally showed the exact spot, where Erick 
had descended over the rock, and Edi began 
the descent a little timidly. But he arrived 
safely down below and ran hither and thither, 
[ 138 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 
calling with a loud voice: ‘‘Erick! Erick!” 
But only the echo from the rocks, round about, 
answered mockingly: “’Rick! ’Rick!” 

Now it really began to be dark, and round 
about not a human sound, only the rushing of 
the Woodbach, sounded through the stillness. 
Edi began to feel a little uncomfortable; he 
climbed as quickly as possible up the rock and 
said hastily : “ Come, we will go home. Perhaps 
Erick is already at home, he may have gone by 
another road.” 

But Sally opposed this proposition with all 
her power, and assured him firmly that Erick 
had not gone home; that he would have first 
come back to her; and she was not going a step 
away from where he had left her, until Erick 
came, for if he were to come and she was not 
there, then he would wait for her again, if he 
had to wait the whole night, she was sure of 
that. 

“We must go home, you know it,” declared 
Edi. “Come, Sally, you know we must.” 

“I cannot, I cannot!” lamented Sally. 
“You go with Ritz and tell them at home how 
it is ; perhaps Erick cannot find the road again.” 
At this conjecture which, only now after she 
had uttered it, Sally saw plainly, she began to 
weep and sob piteously, while Edi took Ritz by 
[139 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
the hand and ran toward home as quickly as 
possible. 

Mother and Aunt were standing before the 
parsonage, looking in all directions to see if the 
children would not make their appearance 
somewhere. ’Lizebeth ran to and fro, hither 
and thither, and asked of the returning chil- 
dren of the neighborhood, where the parsonage 
children were. She received the same answer 
from all: the three were still below by the 
Woodbach, and were waiting for Erick, who 
had gone alone. At last Ritz and Edi came 
running through the darkness. Both panted 
in confusion, one interrupting the other. They 
shouted: “Sally sits — ” — “Erick is over” — 
“Yes, Erick is over” — “But Sally still sits 
and” — 

“Sally sits and Erick is over!” cried the 
aunt. “Now let anyone make sense of that!” 
But the mother drew Edi aside and said: 
“Come, tell me quietly what has happened.” 

Then Edi told everything, how Erick had 
climbed over the rock and how Sally now was 
sitting alone below near the Woodbach, and 
Erick gave no answer to all his calling. 

“For heaven’s sake,” the mother cried, now 
thoroughly frightened, “I hope that nothing 
has happened to Erick ! Or could he have lost 
C 140 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

his way?” She ran into the house to ask her 
husband what was to be done. At once Xiz- 
ebeth ran to seven or eight neighbors and 
brought them together with a good deal of 
noise, all armed with staves and lanterns, as 
’Lizebeth had ordered. Also several women 
hastened up, they too wanted to help in the 
seeking. Now the pastor had come out and 
joined them, for he himself wanted to do every- 
thing to find Erick, and at any rate to bring 
Sally home. ’Lizebeth came last in the pro- 
cession, with a large basket hanging from her 
arm, for without a basket, ’Lizebeth could not 
leave the house. 

Two long hours went by, while the mother 
walked ceaselessly to and fro, now to the win- 
dow, then to the house door, now up and down 
the sitting-room; for the longer no news came 
the greater grew her fear. At last the house- 
door was opened and in came the father, hold- 
ing the weeping Sally by the hand, for he had 
not been able to comfort her. They had at 
that time not been able to get a trace of Erick; 
but the neighbors were still seeking for him and 
had promised not to stop seeking until he was 
found. ’Lizebeth was still with them, and she 
was the most energetic of all the seekers. 

Only after many comforting words from the 
[141 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
mother, and after she had prayed with her 
whole heart with the child to the dear God, 
that He would protect the lost Erick and bring 
him home again, could Sally at last be quieted. 
She fell then into a deep sleep, and slept so 
soundly that she did not wake until late the 
next morning, and the mother was glad to 
know that her daughter was sleeping, as her 
grief would be awakened again, when she 
woke up. 

Sunday morning passed quietly and sadly in 
the parsonage. Father and Mother came out 
of church, before which the people of Upper 
Wood and Lower Wood, from Middle Lot, and 
the whole neighborhood round about, had 
assembled to talk over the calamity. 

So far Ritz and Edi had kept very quiet, each 
busy with his own occupation. Edi, a large 
book on his knees, was reading. Ritz was very 
busy with breaking off the guns from all his tin 
soldiers, as now, having peace in the land, they 
did not need them. 

“So,” Edi, who had looked now and then 
over his book, said quite seriously: “if war 
breaks out again, then the whole company can 
stay at home, for they have no more guns; 
with what are they supposed to fight?” 

Ritz had not thought of that. Quickly he 
[ 142 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

threw all the gunless soldiers into the box and 
said: “I do not care to play any more today,” 
no doubt with the unexpressed hope that the 
guns, by the time he should open the box 
again, might be somehow mended. But now 
he became restless and asked to go out, and 
Edi, who had seen the large gathering by the 
church, also decided to go out doors, for he 
too wanted to hear what was going on. 

The aunt opposed their going out for some 
time, but finally gave her consent for half an 
hour, to which the mother, who had just come 
in, agreed. Now Sally appeared and rushed 
at once to her mother, to hear about Erick, 
whether he had come home and how, where and 
when, or whether news had come. But before 
the mother had time to tell her child gently 
that no news had come from Erick, but that 
more people had gone out, early in the morn- 
ing, to seek him, the two brothers came rush- 
ing in with unusual bluster and shouted in 
confusion : 

“There comes a large, large” — “A very tall 
gentleman” — “A gentleman who walks very 
straight out of a coach with two horses.” 

“I believe it is a general,” Edi brought out 
finally and very importantly. 

“No doubt,” laughed the aunt. “Next you 
[ 143 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

will see nothing but old Carthaginians walking 
about Upper Wood and the whole neighbor- 
hood.” 

But the mother did not laugh. ‘‘Could it 
not be someone who might bring news of 
Erick?” she asked. She ran to the window. 
At the entrance of the house was an open 
traveling coach, to which were harnessed two 
bay horses which pawed the ground impatiently, 
and shook their heads so that the bright harness 
rattled loudly. Ritz and Edi disappeared 
again. These sounds were irresistible to them. 

Now ’Lizebeth rushed in. “There is a 
strange gentleman below with the master,” 
she reported. “I have directed him to the 
pastor’s study, so that the table can be set 
here, for I must go out again to the little boy. 
The gentleman has snow-white hair but he ha 
a fresh, ruddy face and walks straight like an 
army man or a commander.” 

“And he came alone?” asked the mistress. 
“Then he does not bring Erick? Who may he 
be?” 

Meanwhile the tall, strange gentleman had 
entered the pastor’s study below, with the 
words: “ Colonel von Vestentrop, of Denmark. 
The gentleman will excuse me if I interrupt 
him.” 


[ 144 : 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

The pastor was so surprised that for a mo- 
ment he could not collect his wits. Erick’s 
grandfather ! There stood the man bodily 
before him, whose existence had been to him a 
mere fairy tale, and the man looked so stately 
and so commanding, that everyone who beheld 
him must be inspired with respect. But at the 
same time there was something winning in his 
expression, which was familiar to the reverend 
gentleman from Erick’s dear face. And this 
gentleman had traveled so far to fetch his 
grandson, and Erick had disappeared. 

All this passed through the pastor’s head 
with lightning speed; he stood for a moment 
like one paralyzed. But the colonel did not 
give much time to the surprised man to recover 
himself. He quickly took the offered easy 
chair, drew the pastor down on another, looked 
straight into his eyes and said: “Dear Sir, 
you sent through the French pastor in Copen- 
hagen a letter addressed to me, in which you 
inform me of things of which I do not believe 
one single word.” 

The surprise of the pastor increased and was 
reflected in his face. 

“Please understand me rightly, dear Sir,” 
the speaker continued, “not that I mean that 
you would make an incorrect statement; but 
[ 145 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

you yourself have been duped, your kindness 
has been shamefully misused. Because I 
knew that, I did not wish to answer your letter 
in writing, for we would have exchanged many 
letters uselessly and yet would never have 
come to an understanding. Behind all this is 
a clever fellow, who wants to trick you and me 
for the sake of gain. So I have let everything 
rest until I could combine the present explana- 
tion with a journey to Switzerland. So here I 
am, and I will tell you, in as few words as pos- 
sible, the unfortunate story which led to this 
deception. But let me look at once at the 
object in question. I want to see what the 
boy is like, whom the man dares to place before 
my eyes as my grandson.’’ 

The pastor had now to tell of the unfortu- 
nate accident of Erick’s disappearance, how 
they had searched so far in vain, but how 
everything was being done to find the dear 
boy; therefore he might make his appearance 
at any moment. 

The colonel only smiled a little, but that 
smile was a little sarcastic and he said: ‘‘My 
good Sir, let us stop the seeking. The boy will 
not return. The fellow who has placed him in 
your hands has calculated wrongly this time. 
He, no doubt, hoped that I, at such a distance, 
[ 146 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

would credulously accept everything that he 
wanted, and would do what he wished. Now 
he has found out that I myself was on the way 
to see you; and to bring before my eyes some 
foundling as my daughter’s child, that he did 
not dare to do. On that account the child has 
disappeared. Reverend Sir; that man knows 
me.” 

However much the pastor might assure the 
colonel that no one had interfered in the case, 
that the boy, after his mother’s death, without 
anyone’s intercession had come into the par- 
sonage, and that from the boy himself, with- 
out himself knowing it, had come the sugges- 
tions about the country and the name of the 
grandfather, — all explanation of the pastor 
did no good, the sturdy gentleman adhered 
to his firm opinion that the whole thing was 
the invented trick of a man who wished to 
make money, and that the disappearance 
of the boy at the necessary moment con- 
firmed it. 

“But how should, how could the man of 
whom you speak — ” 

The colonel did not listen to the end of the 
sentence. “You do not know this man,” he 
threw in, “you do not know his knavery, Sir! 
I had a daughter, an only child; I had lost my 
[ 147 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

wife soon after marriage; the child was all in all 
to me. She was the sunshine of my house, 
beautiful as few, always joyous, amiable to 
everyone and full of talents. She had a voice 
which delighted everyone; it was my joy. I 
had her instructed in the house, also in music. 
Then, a young teacher came and settled in the 
town, near which my estate lies. People 
talked much about the young musician, and of 
his artistic skill. He was engaged to teach on 
all our neighboring estates. I did the same. 
I had him come to my house every day and had 
no suspicion of misfortune. After a few 
months, my daughter, who was hardly eight- 
een years old, told me that she wanted to marry 
that man. I answered her that that never 
would happen; she should never again speak of 
such a thing. She did not say another word, 
nor did she complain — that was not her way. 
I thought all was past and settled, but found it 
safer to stop the lessons, and I dismissed the 
instructor. The same evening my daughter 
asked me, whether I could ever in my life 
change my opinion. ‘Never in my life,’ I 
said, ‘that is as sure as my military honor’. 
The next morning, she had disappeared. A 
letter left for me told me that she was going 
away with that man and would become his 
[ 148 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

wife. From that time on, — it is now twelve 
years ago, — I have never heard anything from 
my child, till your letter came. 

“That my daughter is dead, I can well be- 
lieve, but that she has left a helpless little boy, 
that I do not believe, for she would have sent 
such a boy, of whom she had a right to dispose, 
to me; she knows me, she would have known 
that I would give him my name, and the re- 
membrance would be wiped away. But this 
boy, who has disappeared again at the right 
time, has been substituted by the music- 
teacher, who no doubt lives somewhere in this 
neighborhood, and has done it for the purpose 
of receiving a sum of money from me. And 
now, dear Sir, we are through. The only 
thing left for me is to express my regret that 
your kindness has been misused through my 
name; good-bye.’’ 

With these words the colonel rose and offered 
his hand to the pastor. The latter held it 
firmly, saying: “Only one more word. Colo- 
nel! Consider one thing: you know your 
daughter’s character. After she had done you 
the great wrong, she might have decided not 
to send the boy to you before he in some way 
could make good the mother’s wrongdoing — 
perhaps not until the time when he would do 
[ 149 ] 


11 


ERICK AND SALLY 

honor to your name, when he should prove to 
you through his own character that he was 
worthy of your name.” 

‘‘You are a splendid man, who means well 
with me; but you have not had the experience 
I have had. You know no distrust, I can see 
that, and that is why you have been imposed 
upon. Let us part.” 

Saying this the colonel again shook the pas- 
tor’s hand and opened the door. There the 
lady of the house met him, who for some time 
with impatience had been walking up and down 
in the garden, for she was sure that this caller, 
who stayed so long, was somehow connected 
with the lost Erick, and she could not under- 
stand why her husband did not call her. Sally, 
from the same expectation and greater im- 
patience, followed her every step. When now 
the mother had seen from the garden, that the 
strange gentleman had risen, she could bear it 
no longer; she must know what was going on. 
When she stepped on the threshold at the 
moment when the stranger opened the door, 
then politeness demanded that the parson in- 
troduce his wife, and the stranger from polite- 
ness was obliged to step back into the room 
when the master of the house introduced his 
wife to him with the words: “Colonel von 
[ 150 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

Vestentrop from Denmark. You indeed will 
be delighted to hear this name.” 

The lady stepped toward the colonel with 
visible delight and said excitedly: “Is it pos- 
sible? But at what a moment! But you will 
stay with us, Colonel, for your dear grand- 
child must be found. The sweet boy cannot 
be lost, he must have lost his way.” 

“Pardon me, my gracious lady,” the colonel 
here interrupted her politely, but somewhat 
stiffly, “I shall start at once. You are under 
a delusion; I have no grandchild, and I must 
bid you good-bye.” 

At mention of the name “Vestentrop”, Sally 
had grown very red; and she trembled all over, 
during the conversation that followed. Now 
she restrained herself no longer. Tears poured 
from her eyes, and with the greatest agitation 
she sobbed: “ Indeed, indeed, he is, I know it, 
he has told me himself ; but I dared not tell it 
to anyone.” 

“Well, the boy has found at least one good 
friend and defender,” said the colonel well- 
pleased, and wanted to pat Sally’s cheeks, but 
she withdrew quickly, for she first wanted to 
know whether the gentleman would believe 
and recognize Erick, before she would let him 
touch her. 


[151 : 


ERICK AND SALLY 

The mother too was struck to the core by 
this incredulity. Her husband had whispered 
a few words to her, so she understood at once 
the whole situation. 

“Colonel,” she now said, placing herself 
before him, “ do not act in such haste. Let me 
prevail on you to stay a few days, yes, even 
this one day! The dear child must, and will 
be found, please God! See him first. Learn 
to know the treasure which you are about to 
give up so lightly. If you could know what 
sunshine you want to withhold from your 
house, you could never be happy again. Do 
not think, sir, that I would give the child 
away; how shall I, how shall we all be able to 
bear it, when the dear, sunny face shall have 
disappeared forever from among our children.” 
The tears came into the mother’s eyes also, 
and she could say no more. 

“Well, I have to declare that the little wan- 
derer has fallen into good hands,” said the colo- 
nel, giving his hand to the pastor’s wife in an 
approving way. “You will allow me now to 
depart.” 

This time the gentleman was determined to 
go. He went out and walked along the long 
corridor with head lifted proudly, followed by 
the pastor, who tried in vain to overtake him 
[ 152 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

so that he could open the door for his guest. 
But before the door could be opened from 
within, it was pushed open with great force 
from outside, and like an arrow the slender 
Edi shot straight into the tall colonel, who had 
been standing directly behind the closed door; 
and at once after Edi, Ritz rushed into Edi, 
and the tall gentleman received the second 
push, and in his ears rang confused screamings 
of mixed words: “They are coming — they 
come — Marianne — Erick — Marianne — they 
come — they come.” And really ! In the house 
door appeared Marianne, quite broad in her 
Sunday best, holding Erick, of whom she kept 
a firm grasp, as if he might fall from there 
down again into the Woodbach. Behind both 
the partaking scholars of the parishes pressed 
in with shouts of rejoicing. 

There was no possibility for the military 
gentleman to get out; the crowd pressed into 
the house with great force. He gave in and 
did what he had never done before in his life — 
he retreated, step by step, until he had arrived, 
backwards, over the threshold of the study, to- 
gether with the whole of the pastor’s family, 
old and young; and at last the fighting Sally 
pressed in. She had taken Erick by the hand 
and did not want to let go of him, and on the 
[153 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

other side Marianne held his hand as in a 
clamp, and she herself was held back from all 
sides, for the schoolfellows wanted to know 
first the story of how Erick was lost and found 
again. 

It was an indescribable uproar. Only after 
the efforts of Sally had succeeded in pulling 
Erick and Marianne out of the human ball and 
into the study, was there sufficient calm so 
that one could understand the other, for the 
school friends had stayed respectfully before 
the door; they did not dare to press into the 
study-room of their pastor. 

Now only could the information be under- 
stood, which Erick and Marianne — each re- 
lieving the other — gave about the whole occur- 
rence. Erick told how he, after a strong push, 
had fallen into the water and then had known 
nothing more, and had wakened again when 
somebody was rubbing him firmly. That had 
been Marianne, who now related further. She 
had gone yesterday afternoon from Oakwood, 
where she was living now, upward along the 
Woodbach, to the place where the berries grew 
the most plentifully, as she knew these many 
years that she had sought and sold them in the 
taverns of Upper and Lower Wood. As she 
was seeking for berries close by the water, 
[ 154 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 
bending down behind the willow bush, she saw 
how the bush was being shaken and how some- 
thing had remained hanging to it. She bent 
around the bush to find out what it might be, 
and saw the black velvet jacket on the water! 
“Oh, dear God!” she then cried out with 
unutterable horror, and never stopped crying 
until, under her desperate rubbing with skirt 
and apron, Erick opened his eyes and looked 
with surprise at Marianne. Now she quickly 
took the large market-basket in which she in- 
tended to put the many small baskets, when 
they were filled; threw the latter all in a heap, 
put the dripping Erick in it, and carried him, 
as quickly as she could, toward her small 
cottage, far beyond Oakwood, in which she 
lived together with her cousin. Here she 
at once undressed the wet boy, wound him 
closely in a large blanket so that nothing was 
to be seen of him besides a tuft of yellow, curly 
hair, put him in bed with the heavy cover far 
above his head, for, “getting him warm is the 
principal thing for the little boy,” she kept on 
saying to herself. Then she went into her 
kitchen and soon came back with a cup of 
steaming hot milk, lifted Erick’s head from 
under the covers, so that his mouth became 
free, and poured the hot milk in it to make the 
[155 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

little fellow warm. When she now had packed 
him in the blanket again, and the fright at find- 
ing the unconscious Erick and the fear of his 
taking cold had passed a little, then it came in- 
to her mind that the people of the parsonage 
did not know what had become of him, and 
that they too would be anxious about him. 
She went again to the bed and tried to bring 
the deeply hidden Erick up again. But Erick 
was already half asleep, and when Marianne 
told him her thoughts, he said comfortingly: 
“No, no, they will know that I will come back 
again, and if they are anxious, then ’Lizebeth 
will come and look for me.” 

Of that Marianne was sure : ’Lizebeth would 
come and take him home. No doubt Erick 
had started to come and see Marianne, his 
friend in Oakwood, and on his way there had 
fallen into the Woodbach by accident, Mari- 
anne thought, for in her anxiety for his wel- 
fare, she had not spoken a word with Erick 
about the accident. Now he was fast asleep. 

Marianne sat down beside him and lifted 
the cover now and then to listen whether he 
was breathing properly. After she had sat 
thus a while and noticed how the little fellow’s 
cheeks began to glow like the reddest straw- 
berries, then she feared no longer that he would 
[156 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

catch cold, and she also felt sure that ’Liz- 
ebeth would not come and thought that the 
people in the parsonage would assume that he 
was going to spend the night at the cottage. 
So Marianne had peacefully locked her cottage 
and gone to sleep. 

The next morning Marianne first had to 
brush and press the velvet suit, for she would 
not bring the boy back to the parsonage in dis- 
order; she would not have done that for the 
sake of his blessed mother. Then she too 
must dress in her Sunday best, and so the 
morning had almost passed before they both 
had started on their way, quite contented and 
without any suspicion of the enormous fear and 
excitement which had been in the parsonage 
and had spread over the whole of Upper Wood. 
At the church they had been greeted by the 
assembled crowd with great noise and much 
confused talking, and then they were accom- 
panied to the parsonage by the schoolmates, 
who were crazed with joy at seeing Erick. 

In the general excitement and joy, the colonel 
had been quite forgotten. He had sat down 
unnoticed on a chair, and had listened atten- 
tively to the reports, following with his eyes 
the lively gestures which the excited Erick was 
making in the zeal of telling his story. Now 
[ 157 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

the reports were finished and for the first time 
Erick’s eyes beheld the stranger in the crowd. 
The latter beckoned him to come to him; 
Erick obeyed at once. 

“Come here, my boy, hither,” and the colo- 
nel placed him right before him. “ So, just look 
straight in my eyes. What is your name.^ ” 

Erick with his bright eyes looked directly 
into those of the strange gentleman, and with- 
out hesitation he said: “Erick Dorn.” 

The gentleman looked at him still more 
directly. “After whom were you called, boy, 
do you know.^” 

Erick hesitated a moment with the answer, 
but he did not divert his glance. It seemed as 
if the eyes of the stranger attracted and con- 
quered him. “After my grandfather,” he 
now said with a clear voice. 

“ My boy — ^your mother used to look at me 
just so, — I am your grandfather — ” and now 
big tears ran down the austere gentleman’s 
cheeks. Erick must have been seized by* the 
attraction of kinship, for without the least 
shyness, he threw both arms around the old 
gentleman’s neck and rejoicingly exclaimed: 
“Oh, Grandfather, is it really you? I know 
you well ! And I have so much to tell you from 
Mother, so much.” 


[158 ] 



He threw both arms around the old gentleman'* s neck and rejoicingly exclaimed: 
Oh, Grandfather, is it really you? . . . 



« I 



SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

“Have you? Have you, my boy?” But 
the grandfather could say no more. 

When Erick noticed that his grandfather 
kept on wiping away the tears, then sad 
thoughts gained the upper hand in him and all 
at once the rejoicing expression disappeared, 
and he said quite sadly: “ Oh,.Grandfather, I 
was not to come to you now, and not for a long 
time. Only when I had become an honorable 
man, was I to step before you and say to you: 
‘ My mother sends me to you, that you may be 
proud of me, and that I may make good the 
sorrow, which my mother has caused you.’” 

The grandfather put his arms lovingly 
around Erick and said: “Now everything is all 
right. It is enough that your mother has sent 
you to me. She meant it well with the ‘hon- 
orable man’, in this I recognize my child; and 
you do not disobey her, my boy, for you see, 
you did not come to me, but I came to you. 
And an honorable man you will also become 
with me.” 

“Yes, that I will, and I know too, how one 
becomes one, for the reverend pastor has told 
me how.” 

“That is lovely of him, we will thank him for 
it. And now we start, this very day, on our 
journey to Denmark.” 

[159 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

“To Denmark, Grandfather, to the beauti- 
ful estate, right now?” Erick’s eyes grew 
larger and larger with astonishment and expec- 
tation, for he only now comprehended, what 
he was going to meet: all that had stood before 
his mental eyes as the highest and most splen- 
did, ever since he could think, and that his 
mother had painted for him in the bright color- 
ing of her childhood’s remembrances, again 
and again, the distant, beautiful estate, the 
handsome horses, the pond with the barge, the 
large house with the winter-garden, — every- 
thing he was now to see, and live there with 
this grandfather, for whom his mother had 
planted such a love and reverence in her boy’s 
heart, that he saw in him the highest of what 
could be found on this earth, — all this over- 
powered Erick so much that he was not able 
to comprehend his good fortune, and with a 
deep breath he asked: “Are you sure. Grand- 
father?” 

“Yes, yes, my boy,” the grandfather as- 
sured him, laughing. “Come, I hope you can 
start at once. You will not have much to 
pack?” 

“Oh, no,” said Erick. “You see,” — and 
he counted on his fingers: “three writing- 
books, three school-books, the pen-box and the 
[ 160 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

beautiful Christmas present that I received 
here in the parsonage.” 

“That is well, that will make a small 
bundle,” but the old gentleman looked at 
his grandson, rather surprised, and said: “I 
am astonished, little waif, that you look so 
fine.” 

“Yes, I believe you. Grandfather,” answered 
Erick. “ That is good stuff that I am wearing ; 
it comes from you. You see, when in the old 
suit which I had worn so long, the patches be- 
came holes, then Mother brought out the beau- 
tiful velvet cloak, with the broad lace, and 
said: ‘That is good, that comes from Grand- 
father, you can wear that a long time.’ And 
then she cut everything apart and sewed every- 
thing together again, and so there came out 
what I am now wearing. And Mother re- 
ceived a great deal of money for the broad lace. 
But only when all was finished and I was wear- 
ing it, she became glad again; during the cut- 
ting and the sewing together, she was very 
quiet.” 

The grandfather too had become still, and 
he turned away for a while. No doubt he too 
thought of the time and what happy days they 
were when he had hung around his beloved 
child the rich mantle, and how sweetly she 
[161 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
stood before him, she whom he was never to see 
again. 

“Come, my boy,’’ he said, turning again to 
Erick. “What has become of your foster- 
parents? It is time that we thank them.” 

The pastor’s wife had seen at once that the 
grandfather had recognized his grandson, and 
as the latter was standing before him, she 
gently urged her husband and children, as well 
as Marianne, out of the room and closed the 
door after her; and outside, in the long passage, 
she let the interested crowd ask their loud ques- 
tions, and give their loudest answers, undis- 
turbed. But when the colonel, holding Erick 
by the hand, came out of the study, she at 
once made an open path for them through the 
assembled people, to bring them upstairs to the 
quiet reception room, where at last the family 
and their guest could be among themselves. 
Here the beaming grandfather went first to the 
lady of the house, and then to the master and 
then again to the lady, and every time he took 
each by both their hands with indescribable 
heartiness and kept on saying: “I have no 
words, but thanks, eternal thanks!” And all 
at once he saw Sally’s head peeping out from 
behind her mother. He suddenly took it be- 
tween his two hands and cried: “There is, I 
[ 162 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

believe, the great friend and defender of my 
boy. Well, now will you forgive me?” 

Sally pulled one of his hands down and pressed 
a hearty kiss on it, and now the colonel tenderly 
stroked her hair and said : “ Such good friends 
are worth a great deal!” 

But when he expressed his intention to start 
at once with Erick, there arose great opposi- 
tion, and this time the mother distinguished 
herself in opposition against such quick separa- 
tion. The grandfather of her Erick ought to 
spend at least one night beneath her roof, and 
give the family the chance of learning to know 
him a little better and to have Erick another 
day in their midst. 

All the children as well as Erick supported, 
louder and always louder, the mother’s request, 
and the beleaguered grandfather had to give 
in. Ritz and Edi ran with much delight and 
noise down the stairs to seat themselves 
proudly in the coach, and thus drive to the 
inn, where both must tell to the guests present, 
who had changed theif consultation place from 
the church to the inn, what they knew of the 
strange gentleman. And so it came about 
that on the same Sunday afternoon, all Upper 
and Lower Wooders, as well as the Middle 
Lotters, knew Erick’s family and fate, and 
[163 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

they had to talk loud and zealously before 
every door, over this change of luck that had 
come to Erick. 

In the parsonage, too, the evening was spent 
with unusually animated conversation. How 
much had to be told to the grandfather of the 
happenings of the last and all former days, and 
Erick had to throw in a question now and 
then, which referred to the distant estate, 
for his thoughts always travelled back to that 
spot. 

“Is Mother’s white pony still alive. Grand- 
father?” he once suddenly asked. 

The beautiful pony had long been put 
away, was the answer. “But you shall have 
one just like your mother’s, my boy. I can 
now bear the sight of it again,” the grandfather 
said. 

“Does old John still live, who made the 
barge and scraped the pebble-walks so nicely?” 
Erick asked another time. 

“ What, you know of that too ? Yes, indeed, 
he is still living, but the joy of seeing my 
daughter’s son whom I am bringing home will 
almost kill him,” said the colonel, smiling 
contentedly at the prospect. 

When Sally and Erick told of their first 
meeting and Sally’s call in Marianne’s cottage, 
[ 164 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

and now it came out that it was the same Mari- 
anne who had pulled Erick out of the water, 
and who had stuck so faithfully to his mother, 
the colonel suddenly jumped up and demanded 
that Erick should go with him at once to Mari- 
anne for, from pure joy, they both had not 
thanked her as they ought to. But the lady 
had foreseen such a request, and had not let 
Marianne go home. And so she was called 
into the room and the colonel quickly took a 
chair and placed it in front of him. Marianne 
had to sit down there and tell everything that 
she knew of his daughter, and what she herself 
had heard and seen. Marianne was very glad 
to do that, and she spoke with such love and 
reverence of the dear one, that at the end of her 
story, the colonel took her hand and shook it 
heartily, but he could not speak. He rose and 
walked a few times up and down the room, 
then he beckoned to Erick, took out of his 
wallet two papers and said: ‘‘Give this to the 
good old woman, my boy; she shall have a few 
good days, she deserves it.” 

Erick had never before enjoyed the happi- 
ness of giving; never had he been able to give 
anything to anyone, for he himself had never 
owned anything. An enormous joy rose up in 
his heart and with bright eyes he stepped to 
C 165 ] 


12 


ERICK AND SALLY 

Marianne and said: “Marianne, here is some- 
thing for you, for which you can buy whatever 
you like.” 

But when Marianne saw that on the paper 
was a number and several zeros after it, she 
struck her hands together from astonishment 
and fright, and cried: “Dear God, I have not 
earned that, this is riches!” And when she 
still kept her hands away from the money, 
Erick stuck the papers deep into her pocket 
and said: 

“ Do you remember, Marianne, how you have 
said that you were growing old and could no 
longer work as you used to, and therefore you 
had to give up the little house and go to your 
old cousin? Now you can have your cottage 
again, with that money, and live in it happily.” 

“That I can, that I can,” cried Marianne, 
forgetting in her joy that she did not want to 
take the large present. Tears of joy ran down 
her cheeks, and from happiness and emotion 
she could not utter a word of thanks, but 
kept on pressing the colonel’s hand and then 
Erick’s, and all were glad with Marianne that 
she could move again into the cottage and keep 
it for always. When at last they must sepa- 
rate for the night, the colonel pressed the house- 
mother’s hand once more and said: “My dear 
[166 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

friend, you will understand with what grati- 
tude my heart is full, when I tell you that this 
is the first happy evening which I have had for 
the last twelve years.” 

Parting had to come the next morning. The 
mother took Erick in her arms and after she 
pressed him to her heart, she said: ‘‘My dear 
Erick, never forget your mother’s song! It 
has already brought you once from the wrong 
road into the right one; it will guide you well 
as long as you live. Keep it in your heart, my 
Erick.” 

When Erick noticed tears in the mother’s 
eyes, then his grew wet, and when Sally 
noticed that, she put both hands to her face 
and began to sob. Then Erick ran to his 
grandfather and pleadingly cried : “ Oh, Grand- 
father, can we not take Sally along? Don’t 
you think we could?” 

The grandfather smiled and answered: “I 
could not wish anything I should like better, 
my boy, but we cannot rob the parsonage of all 
its children, all at once. But come, perhaps 
we can make some arrangement. WThat does 
the mother think about it, if we were to take 
our little friend next summer and bring her 
back for the winter, and do so every year?” 

“Yes, yes,” shouted Erick, “every, every 
[ 167 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 
year as long as we live ! Will you give me your 
word on it, Grandfather, now, right away?” 

“To give you my word on it that it shall be 
so long as we live, that is asking much, my 
boy,” said the grandfather smiling. “If now 
you, both of you, should wish, all at once, to 
have things different — what then?” 

“Oh, no, we are not so stupid,” said Erick, 
“ are we, Sally? Just you promise right away. 
Grandfather.” 

The latter held out his hand to the mother 
and said: “If it suits Mamma, then we both 
will promise, that it shall continue, as long as it 
pleases our children.” 

The mother gave her hand on it, and now the 
two hands were pressed most heartily. 

And the pastor said: “So, so! Agreements 
are made between the colonel and the parson’s 
wife behind my back, and I have nothing to do 
with it but say yes. Well, then, I will say at 
once a firm yes and AmenJ' 

With these words he too shook his guest’s 
hand firmly and there remained only to take 
leave from Ritz and Edi, both of whom he 
heartily invited to Denmark, wherein Erick 
strongly supported him, adding: “And you 
know, Edi, when you are in Denmark, then 
you can go on ships, and study there all about 
[ 168 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

them. That will be a good thing for your call- 
ing.” For Erick had not forgotten that Edi 
intended to sail around the whole world, 
and that Ritz too wanted to be something on 
the sea. 

The grandfather was already entering the 
travelling coach, when Erick was held back by 
Xizebeth; he had pressed into her hand a valu- 
able paper, but she had put her apron to her 
eyes and had begun to sob aloud behind it, and 
now she was holding Erick and said: “I think 
the Sir Grandfather, he means it well as far as 
he sees things ; but that he takes the dear boy 
away from us, — to take one’s little boy simply 
away — ” 

“I will come back again, ’Lizebeth, every 
year when the storks return. Therefore, 
good-bye, ’Lizebeth, until I come again.” 

Saying this, Erick quickly jumped into the 
carriage, and he wore the same velvet suit in 
which he had come. For a long, long time 
he saw the white handkerchiefs wave, and he 
waved his in answer, until the carriage, down 
below at the foot of the hill, turned around the 
corner and disappeared into the woods. But 
when the fleet horses, soon after, reached the 
first houses of the Middle Lot, there was 
another halt. 


[ 169 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

From the moment that Erick had dis- 
appeared, Churi had looked like a picture of 
horror. He had grown white and grayish 
looking, and at every sound that he heard, he 
trembled, for he thought: “Now they are 
coming to fetch you, to put you into prison.” 
Churi had heard that someone who had 
thrown another boy into the water had been 
fetched by two gendarmes and had been put 
into prison, where he had been kept for twenty 
years in chains. Churi saw this picture always 
before him and for fear, he could no longer eat 
nor sleep; and he dared look at no one. And 
when the report came that Erick had turned 
up again, then his fear increased. For now, 
so he thought, it would surely come out that 
he had done the deed; and now he was sure that 
the police would come to get him. But when 
on Sunday, the story went round like lightning 
that Erick, in looking for berries, had fallen into 
the water, then it all at once was clear to Churi, 
that Erick had not told about him and that he 
again could go about quite free and without 
fear. A great, oppressive weight fell from 
Churl’s heart, and he was so touched by Erick’s 
kindness and generosity that he did not sleep 
from thinking what he could possibly do for 
Erick to show him his gratitude. 

[ 170 ] 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

It had really been so. Erick had thought 
that Churi had not meant to push him into 
the water, so he had felt sorry for him, if he 
should be punished for what he did not mean 
to do, and so Erick had only said that he 
had received a push when looking for berries, 
and had fallen into the water. And they had 
assumed that the boys had knocked each other 
about as usual, and Erick had been pushed 
accidentally. 

Churi had thought out his reward, and 
had arranged the following program. All the 
scholars of Middle Lot had to place themselves 
in a long line along the street, and when now 
the carriage with Erick came driving along, 
they, the scholars, all together must shout, 
“Hurrah for Erick.” 

As they one and all now shouted with all 
their might, there was a terrible noise, so that 
the horses jumped and shied. But the coach- 
man had them well in hand and brought them 
in a short time to stand quietly. At this 
moment one of the boys shot out of the line 
and onto the carriage step. It was Churi. 
He bent to Erick’s ear and whispered: “I will 
never again hurt you as long as I live, Erick, 
and when you come back again, you just 
reckon on me; no one shall ever touch you, 
C 171 ] 


ERICK AND SALLY 

and you shall have all the crabs and straw- 
berries and hazel nuts which I can find/’ 

But on the other side someone else had 
sprung on the carriage step and clamored for 
Erick’s attention. He felt something under 
his nose from which came various odors. It 
was an enormous bunch of fire-red and yellow 
flowers, which Kaetheli held out to him, who 
with one foot on the step was balancing over 
the colonel, and called to Erick: “Here, Erick, 
you must take a nosegay from the garden with 
you, and when you come back, be sure you 
come and see us, do not forget.” 

“Thank you, Kaetheli,” Erick called back, 
“I shall certainly come to see you, a year 
from now. Good-bye, Kaetheli, good-bye, 
Churi!” 

Both jumped down, and the horses started. 

“Look, look. Grandfather,” cried Erick 
quickly, and pulled the grandfather in front of 
him, so that he could see better. “ Look, there 
is Marianne’s little house. Do you see the 
small window? There Mother always sat and 
sewed, and you see, close beside it stood the 
piano, where Mother sat the very last time and 
sang.” 

The grandfather looked at the little window 
and he frowned as though he were in pain, 
cm: 


SURPRISING THINGS HAPPEN 

“What did your mother sing last, my boy?” 
he then asked. 

“I lay in heaviest fetters, 

Thou com’st and set’st me free; 

I stood in shame and sorrow. 

Thou callest me to Thee; 

And lift’st me up to honor 
And giv’st me heavenly joys 
Which cannot be diminished 
By earthly scorn and noise.” 

When Erick had ended, the grandfather sat 
for a while quiet and lost in thought; then he 
said: “Your mother must have found a treas- 
ure when in misery, which is worth more than 
all the good luck and possessions which she had 
lost. The dear God sent that to her, and we 
will thank Him for it, my boy. That, too, 
can make me happy again, else the sight of 
that little window would crush my heart for- 
ever. But that your mother could sing like 
that, and that you, my boy, come into my 
home with me, that wipes away my suffering 
and makes me again a happy father.” 

The grandfather took Erick’s hand lovingly 
in his, and so they drove toward the distant 
home. 


[ 173 ] 




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